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Thursday July 7, 2005
Obesity takes heavy toll in the military
VIE ASSOCIATED PRESS
WATERTOWN, Wis.-With
America at war and in need of
a few good men, Jon
Schoenherr expected a warm
reception when he walked
into an Army recruiting office
in this Midwestern farm com
munity, intending to enlist.
But a sergeant gave the 17-
year-old some smprising
“He told me I’d have to
lose a little bit of weight,”
said Schoenherr, who
dropped 50 pounds to
qualify
Besides terrorists, germ
warfare and nuclear
weapons, military officials
increasingly worry about a
different kind of threat-
troops too fat to fight.
Wei^t issues plague all
branches of the military
fix)m elite Marines to the
Air Force, often lam
pooned as the “chair force”
because of its many seden
tary jobs.
Thousands of troops are
struggling to lose wei^t,
and thousands have been
booted out of the service in
recent years because they
couldn’t.
However, one of the biggest
worries concerns those not
even in uniform yet: Nearly
two out of 10 men and four
out of 10 women of recruiting
age weigh too much to be eli
gible, a record number for
that age group.
“This is quickly becoming a
national security issue for us.
The pool of recruits is becom
ing smaller,” said Col. Gaston
Bathalon, an Army nutrition
expert.
Unless weight rules are
relaxed, “we’re going to have a
harder time fielding an
Army” he said.
Idday^s soldiers are super-
sized, averagir^ 37 pounds
heavier than their Civil War
counterparts. Military offi
cials say that’s not all bad,
because most of it is muscle,
not fat, and the result of bet
ter nutrition. “Large and in
charge” makes soldiers look
suits and rislty pnlls to shed
pounds.
Problems don’t end when
active duty does, eifiier. The
Veterans Affairs health sys
tem increasingly is strained
by vets piling on pounds and
developing wei^t-related dis
eases like diabetes.
Ironically the big concern
used to be soldiers not w^gh-
ing enough. Congr^s passed
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more formidable to the
enemy they note.
But at an obesity conference
in Las Vegas last fall and in
interviews since then,
Bathalon and other military
officials detailed the heavy
burden that excess pounds
are causing for some troops
and taxpayers.
Weight problems add stress
to already stressful jobs, cost
ing many soldiers promotions
and leading some to try des
perate measures like rubber
the school limch program
after World War II, worried
that too many hi^ schoolers
were malnourished and unfit
to fight.
“This is the same deal in
reverse. We’ve got youi^ kids
who are not going to be quali
fied for military service.
They’re either unfit or over
fat,” said Col. Karl Friedl,
commander of the U.S. Army
Research Institute of
Environmental Medicine at
Natick, Mass.
USARIEM, as it is known,
has 170 doctors, dietitians,
psychologists and other scien
tists who study military med
ical issues, fix)m preventing
heat exhaustion to coping
with sleep deprivation. They
view soldiers as specialized
athletes whose physical condi
tion can be a life-or-death
matter. Increasingly, they
deal with weight.
It starts with new
recruits. Each branch of
the service has its own
entry rules, but by federal
weight guidelines, 43 per
cent of women and 18 per
cent of men in prime
recruiting ages exceed
screening weights for mili
tary service, Bathalon
said.
Army standards are
based on body fat, using a
chart for body-mass index
a ratio of weight and
height—as a screening
tool. If soldiers or recruits
exceed chart limits, body
fat calculations are done
using a formula based
mostly on WEiist size.
Marines can be as much
as 10 percent over weight
standards to ship to boot
Lunch would be “tuna fish
r^it out of the can” or a low-
carb wrap at school, he said.
After schcx)l, he’d lift wei^ts.
He’s now a svelte 165 poimds
and about to join a special
forces unit.
‘Tve had some people who
have lost dose to 100 poimds
to join,” said Sgt. Chad Eske,
his recruiter.
But often, making it into
the military is just the start of
the struggle. The military
even has its own version of
the “fi-eshman 15”—after
basic training, Army women
gain an average of 18 px)unds
in their first year and often
have problems with annual
weigh-ins that determine
whether they can stay
A survey Bathalon and oth
ers did of 1,435 troops
referred to Fort Bragg
Hospital for weight loss helps
show the drastic measures
some try Roughly three-
fourths did things doctors
recommend—eating less,
exercising more and downing
more fimts and vegetables.
But many resorted to
potentially harmful things.
Nearly half tried using rub
ber suits or saunas to sweat
off pounds, a third of men and
half of women tried appetite
suppressants, and one in five
tried laxatives. 11 percent of
women and 6 percent of men
had tried vomiting.
Half of the troops said
stress was a reason they had
gained weight, and half had
come for help because they’d
been denied promotion.
“The Air Force is not escap
ing the national trends,” Maj.
Christine Hunter said at the
obesity conference, showii^ a
photograph of the new
Baghdad Burger King,
already the thirji busiest in
the world.
Author loses ‘Groove’ after
divorcing inspiring husband
VIE ASSOCIATED PRESS
SAN FRANCISCO — Author'IbrryMc^fiUan
has filed for divorce fix)m the man who inspired
the 1996 novel “How Stella Got Her Groove
Back,” which chronicled the romantic adven
tures of a 40-something woman who falls for a
guy half her age.
In papers filed in Contra Costa County
Superior Court, McMillan, 53, says she decided
to end her 6 1/2-year marriage to Jonathan
Plimimei; 30, after learning he is gay
The revelation led her to conclude Plummer
married only to get his U.S. citizenship, she
said. McMillan met Plunmier at a Jamaican
resort a decade ago.
‘Tt weis devastating to discover that a rela
tionship I had publicized to the world as life-
affirming and built on mutual love was actual
ly based on deceit,” she said in court papers. ‘T
was humiliated.”
In response, Plummer maintained McMillan
treated him with “homophobic” scorn border
ing on harassment since he came out to her as
gay just before Christmas.
Conferderate flag continues to
stir emotions years after removal
VIE ASSOClATEl>PRESS
COLUMBIA—An organizer
of the march against the
Confederate flag that brought
nearly 50,000 people to the
Statehouse five years ago
regrets her group didn’t fight
harder to remove the flag
completely from the capitol
grounds.
Five years ago Friday two
Citadel cadets lowered the
Confederate flag firom atop
the Statehouse dome. At the
same time, a similar flag was
raised atop a pole by a
Confederate monument in
frcMit of the Statehoxxse.
The flag remains there
today, and the governor who
helped broker the compro
mise to move the banner said
it will likely stay there for the
foreseeable future.
“Those who wanted it off the
dome and off the grounds
entirely, they had to see that
that was not a solution that
was going to happen,” said
former Gov. Jim Hodges, who
personally supported a com
promise to put the flag in a
less prominent place on
Statehouse groimds.
While lawmakers and pub
lic officials mostly accepted
the compromise, many that
fought to get the Confederate
flag off the Statehouse dome
don’t want to see it anywhere
on the grounds.
The peak of tlie fight came
in January 2000, when
46,000 people rallied in
Columbia, covering the
Statehouse lawn on Martin
Luther King Jr. Day It was
just months after the NAACP
announced an economic boy
cott of South Carolina.
“The march was so incredi
bly successful. Ovemi^t, the
public conversation went
fiom ‘Can we bring it down?
to Where is -it going?’ It
changed the question,” said
Julia Sibley Jones with the
South Carolina Christian
Action Council, a march orga
nizer.
But Jones said those fight
ing the flag didn’t speak with
one voice on where it should
go-
“The question got reformu
lated by the Legislature, who,
in my opinion, came up with a
bad compromise, not a resolu
tion,” she said.
The boycott of the National
Association for the
Advancement of Colored
People will continue imtil the
Confeda:^te flag is completely
‘We lost, OK?” Givens said.
‘We wanted the flag to stay
who^ it was. We lost. But we
never squawked about it.”
camp.
“The Marines say, ‘Send iis
anybody and we’ll turn them
into a Marine.’ They’re pretty
successful at it,” Friedl said.
Schoenherr, the ^^onsin
Army recruit, was pretty suc
cessful, too. After wei^iing in
at 215 poimds, he did his own
boot camp during his senior
year in hi^ school, going to
the recruiting center for 6
a.m. workouts, then downii^
a boiled e^ or two and orange
juice before heading to class.
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McMllan is seeking to have the marriage
annulled; Plummer has asked the court to set
aside a prenuptial agreement that would pre
vent him fiom getting spousal support.
McMillan filed for divorce in January, but
news of the split didn’t smface until this week,
when it was first reixDrted in a San Francisco
Chronicle gossip colmnn. Earlier this month, a
juc^e ordered McMillan to pay Plummer
$2,000 a month in spousal support and $25,000
in attorney’s fees until the case comes back to
court in October.
McMillan’s latest novel, “The Interruption of
Everything,” is scheduled to hit store shelves
next month. It plots the mid-hfe adventures of
a married mother of three who is questioning
her comfortable suburban life.
McMillan said she did not plan to let a
divorce “detract fiom the many blessings in her
life,” according to a statement released throu^
her publicist.
Plummer’s attorney could not immediately
be loached for comment.
removed fiom the Statehouse,
said James Gallman the
retired president of the state
civil rights group.
‘1 think most people who
see where it is located now
cannot understand why we
would fly on our grounds this
symbol,” Gallman said.
But the boycott has lost its
steam. The political will to
remove the flag completely
wasn’t there in 2000 and still
isn’t there, l^jslative lead^s
say
Flag supporters are split
too.
Ron orison, the national
vice commander of the pro
flag Sons of Confederate
Veterans in 2000, said moving
the flag didn’t end the
NAACP boycott. “From that'
standpoint, it didn’t resolve
anything,” he said.
Michael Givens, South
Carolina commander of the
Sons of Confederate Veterans,
said the compromise satisfied
him, but he wished lawmak
er had allowed South
Carolinians to vote on the
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