Here at the International Training Center we prepare foreign military personnel to attend follow on training in many U.S. military schools. We run prep classes for many different schools. Everything from Aviation to BUDS, EOD, dive school, Marine TBS, and lots of different technical schools. As you could guess the physical training we do varies widely, depending on what the follow on school is. However, the biggest hurdle we face with preparing these people isn’t running or pull-ups, it’s getting their heads in the game.
If you’ve never trained any international military people, let me sum it all up for you in a simple sentence; They’re not in the American military. This doesn’t mean they aren’t smart and/or courageous. Nor does it mean they are all overweight and out of shape. I’ve known (a few) that were some very tough bastards, who could out fight, and PT the average U.S. military member into the ground. What I’m talking about here is getting the majority of them to understand why we (as the American military), think that being overweight and out of shape is a bad thing.
For us it’s simple to understand; A high level of physical fitness is absolutely required to prepare our people for combat, and a trim physically fit leader sets the right example to his people. Trying to explain this obvious concept to some other militaries can be unbelievably frustrating sometimes. Some get it, many don’t. I recently had a Lt. (I won’t mention his country) tell me that he wasn’t worried that he couldn’t do a single pull-up, because he would soon be promoted to Capt, and nobody expects a Capt to PT? Really? I asked him wouldn’t you feel like a wimp that you can’t do a pull-up, ESPECIALLY as a officer? He looked at me like I was crazy?
I bring this all up to illustrate a simple point. Without any shame in the game it’s hard to motivate people to get in shape. The same thing goes for the civilian world. As our country has become more overweight and sickly (check the growing rates of diabetes, and obesity), there is also a new requirement to be more politically correct and nice about how we speak about this. When I came in the Marine Corps in 1981, overweight people were referred to by everyone as: “Fat Bodies”. I guess that was insulting, and frankly meant to be so to get people off their ass, and get in shape. Try calling somebody that today and watch what happens?
Of course it’s not because they eat fast food like they’re possessed, and shine a chair with their butt 24/7 playing video games. It’s due to stress, hormones, gluten, carbs, or maybe even a bad childhood? Give me a break please, I know better. People need to wake up, as we are headed for a crisis in this county, both physically and financially with the worsening health of our population (note the chart below). However we’re supposed to all feel better about being overweight and just accept it. Otherwise your being a judgmental dick? Well I for one think a little shame could go a long way. Just the Master Gunny in me I guess, but to me a fat body is still a fat body, and if you can’t do a single pull-up, you shouldn’t be in a leadership position. Sorry.
Be safe always, good when you can.
Semper Fi
MGunz
www.CorpsStrength.com
Tags: Corps Strength
BMI is such a misleading and oversimplified indicator. I know countless muscular individuals with healthy to low body fat compositions that are beyond guidelines for BMI. It’s a cheap and over relied upon metric that should be taken with a grain of salt.
Totally agree with this one. I’m Filipino, 5’11, 209lbs. According to my BMI, I should be obese. But my bodyfat is within normal limits and I keep myself in shape. I do cardio, calesthenics and weight exercises. During our medical exams, I fail the weight test because of my BMI. Funny thing is, a lot of pot-bellied, lard-assed men same as my height passed. Visibly, they should be on the obese level but according to BMI, they are just overweight.
I agree, I knew guys in my unit when I was in the Corps who were considered to be overweight because of their BMI despite the fact that they were always able to pass their PFTs with flying colors. I think that later on the Corps, and the military in general, went to an appearance standard so that they could still ding the strong but chubby/fat guys. Of course this was back in the 90s where the military brass were more than happy to find any excuse to let people go.
In response to Tackleberry’s post, I agree that BMI is not a great measure of adiposity/obesity/being fat. Currently, waist to hip ratio (WHR) is also being assessed as it is in multiple ways better at measuring a person’s fat body-ness than BMI is due to how patterns in how fat is deposited in the body.
I am a civilian and never served but I agree totally with this post regarding physical fitness and being an example for others. I am in a healthcare related masters program and I can see some parallels between being in shape in the armed forces and being in shape as a professional in the healthcare setting and that in part motivates me to live healthier.
I agree with this wholeheartedly. I remember the first time i had to run to cover in the frickin mountains of afghanistan and was instantly thankful for being pushed to be physically fit. Or atleast as best as i could before we deployed. I wish id have known to do more legs >_<
I would like to point out that demotivating somebody in trying to get them to be better is pretty self defeating. Especially if it coupled with the "nothing is ever good enough under any circumstances" toxic leadership model.
BMI is not inappropriate for use in population studies, like the maps provided. It is wrong to use as an individual evaluation tool. Ancel Keys, who popularized both BMI and the “let’s put sugar in everything because fat is evil” modern American diet explicitly said so.
I have no idea how to deal with people who think that being a military leader means not having to do anything physical and are not embarrassed by that. I’m glad I don’t have to make a living trying to solve that problem.
Awesome piece. The whole “feel good about yourself even if you’re obese” movement is responsible for removing the motivation that shame can provide.
Liked the graphs. What is the source? CDC?
That is definitely interesting fact, because the number of people with BMI >30 in US is 20% larger than average in the world. So, it sounds like people in the US military are much more special comparing to civilians than in other countries, if the impression, described in this article is statistically correct.
Colorado has been holding out for a long time but the influx of Californians and Texans has hurt our stats. If you exclude Jefferson and Douglas counties we are still in the Canadian range for BMI.