There was a story this week in Army times about all the services looking at weight standards in light of our nation’s battle with obesity.  Conflicting concerns for fairness and maintaining the force’s capability to fight our nation’s war were mentioned.  There was also discussions that lowering standards wasn’t acceptable, the services are looking for better ways to measure troops’ body fat than measuring tapes but that can be conducted in austere environments and at low cost to serve over a million person armed forces.

What struck me though was how similar the discussion was to allowing women in combat arms.  There were issues of equality as well as how overweight troops don’t perform as well as those that aren’t.  The story cited as evidence an unspecified study that found overweight soldiers were 40 percent more likely to suffer an injury during deployment.  That reminded me of numerous studies showing women were exponentially more prone to injury during basic training and in the more physical training associated with combat arms.

Strikingly missing from the discussion was a proponent for overweight people’s rights citing diversity as making the force stronger.  Maybe overweight people don’t deserve the same level of fairness we demand for groups differentiated by gender.  Funny, since the issues are the same, force readiness vs. fairness.  Add to the mix that many overweight troops are still able to pass their physical fitness tests and meet other standards while admittedly not looking their best in uniform.  Interesting…