Retired Military Officers Weigh In On Childhood Obesity: School ...

In 2010, several retired military officers made the startling announcement that the school lunches being served in the American cafeterias were not only a blight on the face of good health but a threat to our very security. At the rate of childhood obesity right now, they said, we are all going to be in serious trouble by the year 2030. It will be in that year that the problem will become critical as the children of today will not be fit to fight if they are ever needed. Those military officers are worried that there will not enough recruits to keep the US military forces at their peak numbers.

Currently, the leading cause for a recruit to be rejected from service is their weight. If the recruit does not make weight, they can try to enlist again in the future. Each branch of the military has its own standards for height, weight and body fat percentage. In the Army and Army National Guard, for instance, women must be a minimum of 58 inches tall. Acceptable weight for a 17-20 year old of that height would be 112 pounds with a maximum body fat percentage of thirty. For boys, the height minimum is 60 inches and the weight is 139 pounds. He must have a maximum of twenty percent body fat. The weight changes by the age of the recruit/soldier as well. Over a quarter of the US population of teens and young adults 17-24 fail to meet those standards by a substantial margin.

What makes the proclamation of the military officers more ironic is how the school lunch program came to exist in the US in the first place. Right after the end of World War II, too many potential recruits were too thin, with stunted growth and small size. To get them healthy and back to "fighting" condition, the school lunch program was born.

There have been some changes in the school lunch program in recent years, with a new overall just recently completed. Sodium is going to be reduced and certain food groups will get top billing. However, dieticians worry that the new guidelines did not go far enough. To appease protests, the schools have allowed certain foods to remain on the menu, stretching the guidelines to count the sauce on the pizza as a vegetable or instance. Adult obesity has tapered at this point, but childhood obesity's numbers continue to climb.

Source: http://www.streetarticles.com/childhood-obesity-prevention/retired-military-officers-weigh-in-on-childhood-obesity-school-lunches-are-a-security-risk

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