Air Force Ordering Less Fat, More Muscle
U.S. Air Force personnel considered too fat by commanders will be ordered to undergo tests of their fat-to-muscle ratio and to go on diets if it is too high, the U.S. armed forces’ newspaper Stars and Stripes reported Thursday.
The new weight-management program gives commanders the right to judge if personnel present a “professional military appearance,” so that staying just under maximum allowable weight will no longer be sufficient to avoid the diet order, it reported from the U.S. air base at Ramstein, West Germany.
“Even though a person may be 10 or 15 pounds under his maximum allowable weight, he can still be placed on the weight-management program if the nomogram shows too high a percentage of fat,” Master Sgt. Fred Packard of the Air Force’s Quality Programs Branch was quoted as saying.
Nomograms gauge the ratio of fat to muscle. Men under 29 can have up to 20% fat, older men can have 24%.
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