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35 percent of American youths too fat to join military, Pentagon says
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(File photo: Carolyn Kaster/AP)
Thirty-five percent of the 31 million Americans between the ages of 17 and 24 are unqualified for military service because of physical and medical issues, according to the latest Pentagon figures.
The major component of this is obesity. We have an obesity crisis in the country," Curt Gilroy, the Pentagon’s director of accessions, told the Air Force Times. There’s no question about it.”
The Pentagon gets its data from the Centers for Disease Control, which regularly tracks obesity. In 1987, according to the CDC, just six percent of 18- to 34-year-olds were obese. In 2008, 22 years later, 23 percent of that age group — almost one out of four — was considered obese.
The reasons are “almost common knowledge, Gilroy said — what he called “the couch potato syndrome” and the widespread elimination of scholastic physical fitness programs.
“(Obese) kids are just not able to do push-ups,” Gilroy told the Air Force Times. “And they can’t do pull-ups. And they can’t run.”
For more info: Air Force Times article.
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