Hegseth vows crackdown on military obesity after shocking Reserve, Guard report

More than two-thirds of Reserve and Guard troops are overweight, a potential threat to readiness and their ability to deploy at a moment’s notice, a new report by the American Security Project (ASP) found. 

Some 68% of the nation’s reserve forces are overweight, ASP researchers estimate. 

“With the diminished size of the [active-duty] force and increasing demands on the National Guard and reserves, service members separated due to obesity and its comorbidities are vital personnel the Armed Forces cannot afford to lose,” researchers concluded in the report.

The study calls for new policies to ensure troops’ health and better access to obesity-related healthcare. 

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“Completely unacceptable. This is what happens when standards are IGNORED — and this is what we are changing. REAL fitness & weight standards are here. We will be FIT, not FAT,” Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth declared in a post on X. 

An ASP report from October 2023 found that two-thirds of active duty service members fell into the overweight to obese category based on body mass index. 

“These service members experience heightened risk for a wide variety of serious health conditions, such as type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular disease, chronic kidney disease, and osteoarthritis, which may lead to life-threatening health events such as stroke and heart failure,” the report warned. 

Past studies from ASP have found a similar rate of obesity among active duty forces, based on the controversial BMI scale that does not account for muscle mass. 

However, the report warned, for reserve forces who hold day jobs and often live far away from military bases, ​”commanders and policy makers will not be able to combat these trends with a uniform approach.”

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The report recommended further tracking and research of obesity rates within reserve forces, noting the Defense Department’s most recent data is from 2018.

Hegseth launched a review of grooming and physical fitness standards last month after voicing concerns that fitness standards have eroded and questioning whether mismatched standards for men and women are affecting readiness. 

It directed the undersecretary of Defense for Personnel and Readiness to look at “existing standards set by the Military Departments pertaining to physical fitness, body composition, and grooming, which includes but is not limited to beards.”

The memo also called for a review to examine how standards have changed since 2015. 

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The service branches began making accommodations for recruits who do not meet physical fitness standards in recent years as a way to address the recruiting crisis. The Army and Navy offered pre-boot camp training for those who did not meet physical fitness or testing scores. However, those recruits had to meet the same standards in order to graduate from training courses and serve. 

“When I was in the Army, we kicked out good soldiers for having naked women tattooed on their arms, and today we are relaxing the standards on shaving, dreadlocks, man buns, and straight-up obesity,” Hegseth wrote in his book “The War on Warriors.”