Inside Track
Americans Too Obese or Criminal to Join Armed Forces
The fact that many potential recruits for the U.S. Army are too obese or criminal is adding to historic low recruitment numbers not seen since the end of the Vietnam War.
Lieutenant General Xavier Brunson, the commander of Joint Base Lewis-McChord in Washington state, told The Spokesman-Review on September 6 that recruitment is so low that the Army won’t meet its goal for 2022 of 485,000, falling short by a staggering 20,000 recruits.
One reason recruitment numbers are down is that fitness issues are causing dwindling interest in military service. The growing sedentary lifestyle of young Americans has led to an obesity crisis. “Overweight and obesity among service members rose 73% from 2011 to 2015,” according to the CDC, and these individuals are less likely to be medically ready to deploy.
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