Move FM Global News

WASHINGTON D.C.: New research found that during the COVID-19 pandemic, obesity in the US military surged, with the Army recording nearly 10,000 active duty soldiers as becoming obese between February 2019 and June 2021, nearly a quarter of the troops studied.

Increases were also seen in the US Navy and Marines.

“The Army and the other services need to focus on how to bring the forces back to fitness,” said Tracey Perez Koehlmoos, research leader and director of the Center for Health Services Research at the Uniformed Services University in Bethesda, Maryland.

Federal research shows that every year the US military loses more than 650,000 workdays due to weight and obesity-related health costs exceeding $1.5 billion per year for current and former service members and their families.

“More recent data will not be available until later this year, but there are no signs that the trend is ending, underscoring longstanding concerns about the readiness of America’s fighting forces,” Koehlmoos said.

Retired Marine Corps Brigadier General Stephen Cheney, who co-authored a recent related report, said that military leaders have been warning about the impact of obesity on the US military for more than a decade, but the lingering pandemic effects highlight the need for urgent action.

“The numbers have not gotten better. They are just getting worse and worse and worse,” Cheney said in a November webinar held by nonprofit think tank American Security Project.

Extra weight can make it difficult for service members to meet core fitness requirements, which differ depending on the military branch.

“The steady creep of obesity among service members is alarming. The country has not approached obesity as the problem it really is,” Cheney stressed.

A 2022 survey of American adults found that almost half reported gaining weight after the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic, and another study showed a rise in obesity among children.

“Why would we think the military is any different than a person who is not in the military? Under stress, we want to store calories,” Dr. Amy Rothberg, endocrinologist at the University of Michigan, as quoted by Reuters.

“A new category of effective anti-obesity drugs, including semaglutide, marketed as Wegovy, could be a powerful aid,” she added.

TRICARE, the Defense Department’s health plan, covers such drugs.