Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth expressed his dismay on April 25 after a new report found that more than two-thirds of U.S. military reserve personnel are overweight.
Washington-based think tank American Security Project (ASP) published a white paper this week that found that nearly 68 percent of reserve troops are overweight or obese.
In 2018, when the Department of Defense last surveyed obesity rates in the reserve military components, it found that around 65 percent of reserve troops were considered overweight or obese.
“The number of young adults interested in military service remains sufficient to maintain current force strength. However, as overweight and obesity disqualify thousands of applicants each year, services are incentivized to violate body composition enlistment standards to meet recruitment goals,” the new ASP report reads.
Hegseth took to social media platform X on Friday to call the report’s findings “completely unacceptable.”
“This is what happens when standards are IGNORED — and this is what we are changing. REAL fitness & weight standards are here,” the defense secretary said. “We will be FIT, not FAT.”
Hellbound and Down 