A staggering number of troops are fat and tired, report says

[nitpicker]

https://www.militarytimes.com/off-duty/military-culture/2018/10/03/a-staggering-number-of-troops-are-fat-and-tired-report-says/

A staggering number of troops are fat and tired, report says

By: J.D. Simkins    1 day ago

A 2018 RAND report on health promotion and disease prevention has painted a grim picture of the military’s physical fitness and sleep standards. The study, featuring roughly 18,000 randomly selected participants across each of the service branches, showed that almost 66 percent of service members are considered to be either overweight or obese, based on the military’s use of body mass index as a measuring standard.
(snip)

Broken down by service, the 2018 report lists the Army as the branch accounting for the highest percentage of overweight troops, with 69.4 percent of soldiers falling under this category. The Army was followed by the Coast Guard (67.8 percent), Navy (64.6 percent), Air Force (63.1 percent) and Marine Corps (60.9 percent).

Another glaring area of concern highlighted in the study was the inability of service members to get adequate sleep.

Nearly 9 percent of military personnel reported taking sleeping medications either “daily” or “almost daily.” The Army reported the highest rate of sleep concerns, with 10.6 percent of soldiers routinely consuming sleeping aides. Marines (9.9 percent), airmen (7.5 percent) and sailors (6 percent) rounded out the troubling category.

In terms of problematic sleeping patterns, 59.4 percent of soldiers reported getting less sleep than needed, and 33.2 percent answered that the lack of sleep contributed to being regularly bothered by an energy deficiency. Personnel from the other services, especially the Navy and Marine Corps, reported experiencing the aforementioned sleep issues at a similar rate.
(snip)

[SunSeeker]

1. Being out of shape and sleep deprived can lead to disaster out in the field. nt.

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

2. Lack of sleep is an enormous problem everywhere.

I've been reading books about sleep for at least three decades now, and they all agree that most of us don't get enough sleep. Worse, the consequences of sleep deprivation are routinely minimized or ignored.

One recent book reported on research that showed, among other things, that if you get a flu vaccination on a day after you haven't gotten a full eight hours of sleep, your body doesn't create the antibodies needed to make the vaccine fully effective. Duh. That sort of thing may be a huge factor in why so many people report they got the vaccination and still got the flu. Because they were sleep deprived in the first place.

Most of my life, and I'm 70 now, I've made it an important goal to get enough sleep. Mostly I've been successful. Oddly enough, I'm the healthiest person I know. Even or perhaps especially at my age.

Alas, there's an attitude that "You can sleep when you're dead". Unfortunately, if you are chronically sleep deprived you may well be dead a whole lot sooner.

[msongs]

3. mess halls have been contracted out to fast food disaster joints like jack in the box etc

dietary disasters all of them. kfc in kabul? death on a chicken bone.

[DashOneBravo]

6. Mess halls?

I thought mess halls were run by contractors who cook it.

I’ve seen fast food places replace the old snack bars but didn’t think they’d taken over the mess halls

[MFM008]

4. Just like

50 percent of the population...
100 percent in my house.....

[tanyev]

5. I've wondered about that when the Girl Scouts try to sell me boxes of cookies to send to the troops.

I'm sure our troops need lots of things, but I don't think countless pallets of cookies is one of them.