Dietary Guidelines making America militarily unsafe?
Options
cstehansen
Posts: 1,984 Member
After having read quite a bit about the latest dietary guidelines put out by our wonderful government in December 2015 and seeing much of the main stream population response being apathetic because they don't think it really affects them, I thought I would post this article.
http://www.militarytimes.com/articles/the-us-military-has-a-huge-problem-with-obesity-and-its-only-getting-worse
Although the average citizen may not think they are affected by these guidelines, you have to understand these are the guidelines used when the government feeds our troop, school students, government workers and in setting guidelines for hospital food, etc.
Everyone here knows full well eating a mostly grain based diet where the only acceptable fats are highly processed vegetable oils is a disaster, but we have a choice to eat differently. Our soldiers eating in mess halls or from rations while in various theaters of action do not have that same luxury. As a result, the % of soldiers who are obese has gone from 1.6% in 2001 to 7.8% in 2015. that is an increase of almost 5 times.
This article's only mention about diet is one person saying maybe they need to make sure the soldiers are eating their fruits and veggies and not just starting off with the 22 grams of fat sausage.
For those in other countries, understand that most other countries essentially use what the US government puts out or at least uses it as the basis for their own guidelines.
http://www.militarytimes.com/articles/the-us-military-has-a-huge-problem-with-obesity-and-its-only-getting-worse
Although the average citizen may not think they are affected by these guidelines, you have to understand these are the guidelines used when the government feeds our troop, school students, government workers and in setting guidelines for hospital food, etc.
Everyone here knows full well eating a mostly grain based diet where the only acceptable fats are highly processed vegetable oils is a disaster, but we have a choice to eat differently. Our soldiers eating in mess halls or from rations while in various theaters of action do not have that same luxury. As a result, the % of soldiers who are obese has gone from 1.6% in 2001 to 7.8% in 2015. that is an increase of almost 5 times.
This article's only mention about diet is one person saying maybe they need to make sure the soldiers are eating their fruits and veggies and not just starting off with the 22 grams of fat sausage.
For those in other countries, understand that most other countries essentially use what the US government puts out or at least uses it as the basis for their own guidelines.
0
Replies
-
I know that when my sister went into boot, she was a practicing vegetarian, but she knew that she couldn't stay that way, because they had very limited options, and she'd never survive boot and AIT without supplementing her foods, because they didn't provide even half of a nutritional profile. She managed to get to 3rd level Krav Maga eating vegetarian, so it wasn't a lack of foods - merely the lack of the Army's available food choices. And that was within this decade... I can only imagine what the rest says.
My former SIL in the Air Force had to deal with being put on profile (warning and limited action) due to gaining weight with a pregnancy (outlying issue), and she took up smoking again to help her get back to fit, then quit once she got back down to limit and was serving overseas where she could actually eat reasonably.
Since we all know the US Military leaves most of it's soldiers and families at poverty level, it's really no surprise that they won't spend money on nutrition. I don't know if I can calm down enough to even read this article, so...0
This discussion has been closed.