BMI IN CANADIAN FORCES

[Combat Clerk]

Recently I went to NDHQ Ottawa and I saw many soldiers overweight.  Their uniform was so tied that I was scared to walk by them and get hit.  It doesn't look very good when the public see a man or a woman walking on the street with a very tied uniform on them.  Where is the pride to wear an official uniform and represent your country with that look (FAT).

I believed there is a lack of physical training in the CF, I still believe that the CF should put the BMI system back on track. :warstory:

 

[Marty]

As I understood the BMI , it was flawed in that it put  the guys that were big because of muscle into the same cat as guys that were big because of fat . I aggree that there is no excuse for being out of shape , but there must be something out there that is better than the BMI.

 

[Island Ryhno]

BMI is not accurate for exactly the reasons you mentioned, it puts big muscular guys in with big fat guys (and girls, gotta be PC right  ) If you want an example go look at the report that said the majority of NFL players are obese, try telling Ray Lewis that one. It also said Shaq was obese  : A much more accurate measure is Body Fat Composition, but it's difficult to institute and could cause logistical nightmares. That being said as mentioned on other threads, not everyone in the forces needs to be an athlete. NDHQ guys are office workers, they don't need to have a combat fit body. Now do I believe that everyone should take pride in themselves and try to remain as fit as possible, of course but the extremely high fitness level required by and Infanteer or Engineer is not required by an Pay Clerk or a Cook or MSE OP or a paper pusher at NDHQ. It's the nature of human beings, most are not fit if they don't have to be fit and it's a society, indeed worldly problem.  8)

 

[Trinity]

Recently I went to NDHQ Ottawa and I saw many soldiers overweight. 

:

 

[Strike]

There are some nice scales out there that measure % body fat.  It requires the user to input age and height and to jump on the scale barefoot and w/o any metal objects.  Pretty nice.  I have one and it's great.

 

[Big Foot]

Ummm, why is this in the french forum?

 

[HItorMiss]

Island Ryhno...your down right wrong on that one, your in the Forces I don't care of your infantry,clerk,cook,eme etc etc etc, you need to be fit you need to be able to put on that rucksac grab that rifle,lmg,gpmg and get to a hot spot regardless of what your trade is where you work currently in the forces.

Let me put it to you this way, your an MSEOP you have been at NDHQ for a number of years, then suddenly your on a flight to take a spot in Afghanistan, now you have been not doing PT and not staying fit and hitting the coffee, donut's and smokes pretty hard over these last years with such delusional thoughts of PT is for the combat arms, I don't need to be fit it's not my job thats the infantry, armoured etc etc....now suddenly your convoy takes a hit all you got are your own 2 feet and a heart beat to get your butt out of a hot spot and now all you can feel is burning in your your chest and legs and how over less the 1 km you can't run and move anymore cause your not fit enough to do the job....now you have gone from person to just another sad statistic and a another body I or someone else has to go recover or save cause you deluded yourself all those years.

now I want to stress something here, I am not saying you personally are out of shape nor am I saying that every Officer and soldier at NDHQ is unfit or that any of the above mentioned trades are unfit, but I will say in my 6yrs in the forces I have heard every argument about why this person or that person or this trade and that trade doesn't need to be fit, and all I can think is how many battles have been won because of rear ech clerks and cooks back in the day that were soldiers first and trades second, that picked up a rifle and moved to the front line and held that line because they could do the job, the excuse that just because your not a field trade or a combat arms trade or not posted to any of the CMBG's just doesn't hold water for me and it never will!

 

[JeMeSouviens]

I agree with you HitorMiss, but I think the problem is that the CF would loose a lot of personel if everyone had to be fit. Actually, we need this personnel for support. Can you imagine how much people would leave the forces or be kicked out?

Anyway, I still agree with you that everyone should be able to do his soldier job before anything else.

P.S. Why is this in the french forum?  ???

 

[SigPigs]

Yes we need to get rid of those slugs who are obese. Not the people who could lose a couple pounds , I mean those FAT SOB's that still haven't gotten off their asses and gotten into shape even a little. It disgusts me to see these people in uniform and that the public see them as the CF along with me.    They should get put on a program to shape up..if not then ship out, they're no good to anyone in a crisis anyway!!
There are WAY more fat women out there also..NDHQ looks like a haven for fat chicks. Maybe it's a posting preference... if you can't touch your toes!!

YEAH why is this in the French forum??  Je ne c'est pas.

 

[Island Ryhno]

Now saying that I'm down right wrong is a little over the top isn't, you could just say that you disagree with me  Here's what I see about people in general, human beings develop the bodys they need for the job that they do. If you are an office slug, well you tend to lean more towards the Jabba the hut side, and it's becuase they do NO physical activity at all for 10 hrs a day at work and 8 hours a night at sleep and so on and so on. To transform said people would take a very tight fitness regime and guess what, most of those people will not do anything unless they are forced to do it. They will quit first, hey you could be an accounting tech in civvie world, make about the same money and get as fat as you want. Infantry folk also develop the bodys they need, I don't care how much you run or lift weights or do crunches, you can't get Infantry fit without doing Infantry exercises and there is no real world equivalant to it. So I guess what I'm saying is that when on exercise, does a cook every go out with the Infantry or engineers? No, so they can't develop that body type. Unfortunately this will always be the way, people will not go out of their way to become a combat fit clerk or what not, how can it be realistically expected when so many on here claim that the combat arms are not fit. You're hardly going to get people likely to never end up in combat to get fit for it, when those that live to go to combat will not. Also and this is an assumption as I've never been in combat, but if a cook or clerk has to pick up ruck and hump it for 40km then something has probably gone seriously wrong. Anyone know any instances of rear echelon folks being involved in modern combat?

 

[TCBF]

The trouble with BMI - or any fitness program - is that it is enforced by only those orgs that are fit to start with. One CO once complained that he was sending his BMI cases to be released at base, and the base clerks were fatter than the guys being released.  I should point out I have nothing against clerks - far from it. The coach of the 8 CH (PL) forced march team in Lahr at one point was the Regt Chief Clerk, possibly the fittest man of the 528 in the Regt.

I had run a 42 km German Volksmarch on a Sunday, and on the Monday was doing a Pt 1 Medical.   Guess what?  I failed the BMI, I was underweight.  So I said to the MO, "Well, that's that, I am now on C&P, send me upstairs to the CO."  The MO said no, that was not the intent of the program.  Why not?  If I was over BMI 27 he would have, right?  That bias, plus our refusal to back up pinch-an-inch with float tanks (if you are about to fire someone, you had bloody well better be scientific about it), plus an uneven application of a flawed program did in the whole BMI thing.

 

[garb811]

The trouble with BMI - or any fitness program -

That's another problem right there.  BMI isn't a fitness programme nor does it measure your fitness level.  It's a false threshold to enforce in an organization where fitness is the aim.  I know a guy who got under the magical number by going on a diet as opposed to doing any serious PT.  Didn't make him a fitter soldier, just a trimmer looking one.  We all know guys who are carrying a little extra beef but still have the legs and the lungs to go the distance with a ruck on their back even if they can't run with the gazelles.  I'm willing to bet you can think of a couple â Å“skinnyâ ? guys you've met in your career who couldn't keep up with the pack as well.  I know I can.

 

[TCBF]

"That's another problem right there.  BMI isn't a fitness programme nor does it measure your fitness level.  It's a false threshold to enforce ..."

Good point MP 00161, and what I should have written was:

"The trouble with BMI - as well as some actual fitness programs, is that they are often enforced only by those orgs that are generally fit to begin with."

As far as us "Skinny" guys not being held to it, my post-marathon story above illustrates that as well.

 

[mitch83]

yeah BMI isnt that accurate for guys with muscle but alls you need is som calipers and PSP staff to measure bodyfat and determine if your obese or not ...I think this is the most pressing issue in the forces and sick of guys who make excuses and regardless if the army will lose alot of troops ar not isnt really relevant cause there not the kind of soldiers you wanna have ...now im not saying theyre not skillful but NDHQ came up with the standards (fitness) for a reason. during operations alls we have is ourselves and our buddies to get us through and if you cant even count on your buddy to maintain a physical standard for combat well id hate to be the guy beside you cause you put both our lives in serious trouble because regardless we dont leave anyone behind just my opininion...for gods sake hit the gym

 

[nawk]

Even skin calipers and hydrostatic weighing are not 100% accurate.  A soldier needs to be FIT.  Therefore the only type of test that should be administered should be something that tests FITNESS not body fat. 

 

[Britney Spears]

Here's the straight dope for BMI: It was never intended to me a measure of physical health for an INDIVIDUAL. When dealing with larger populations, the outliers and different body types are regressed away statistically and you do end up with a very accurate measure of the overall health/wellbeing/mortality rate of a large enough population, but it cannot accurately predict anything about a single subject. 

For StatsCan demographers, BMI is a very useful tool, but it boggles the mind how anyone could have thought of using it to assess an individual's level of fitness. Reminds me of the LSVW, WW Boot, Cougar, and all the other stuff we end up using for the wrong task......

http://www.cdc.gov/nccdphp/dnpa/bmi/bmi-adult.htm

 

[FreeFloat]

Besides, unless things are changing that I'm not aware of, failing the annual EXPRES test (or the 13K ruck march) are the only ways to get written up or kicked out.

This has more to do with the Universality of Service program........"soldier first, tradesmen second" and all that jazz.

 

[GerryCan]

Besides, unless things are changing that I'm not aware of, failing the annual EXPRES test (or the 13K ruck march) are the only ways to get written up or kicked out.

Or no repurcussions at all...it's a wonderful system full of wonderful surprises ;D

 

[I_am_John_Galt]

and you do end up with a very accurate measure of the overall health/wellbeing/mortality rate of a large enough population, but it cannot accurately predict anything about a single subject.

Not any more!  The CDC just announced that they had previously overestimated the health risk of obesity - by 1,400%(!!!):

CDC says obesity deaths overestimated


By Joyce Howard Price
THE WASHINGTON TIMES

The federal government greatly overestimated deaths from obesity in the United States, according to new CDC estimates, which now ranks it as the No. 7 most-preventable cause of death, rather than No. 2.
    As recently as January, the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimated obesity as being responsible for 365,000 deaths per year in the United States. But the new estimate, published today in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA), puts the annual death toll at only 25,814 -- the earlier estimate was about 14 times greater...

The study, led by Katherine M. Flegal of the National Center for Health Statistics, a branch of the CDC, analyzed mortality according a person's to BMI, or body mass index, which measures weight and height. It determined that being modestly overweight, but not obese, "was not associated with excess mortality" or a shorter life expectancy. In fact, the research shows that being overweight is actually less of a mortality risk factor than being of normal weight.

http://www.washtimes.com/national/20050420-124451-2201r.htm (More politically-correct received wisdom flaming-out in the face of real data).

 

[TCBF]

"CDC says obesity deaths overestimated"

A very long time ago, some fat girl sat on me at the Coriano Club, and I thought I was going to die...