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[–] 61 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (8 children)

“Today, at my direction, every member of the joint force, at every rank, is required to take a PT test twice a year, as well as meet height and weight requirements twice a year, every year of service,” he said.

So he's going to use the BMI to tell whether someone is obese or not. BMI is great for statistics, but terrible for assessing individuals. A lot of military guys do bodybuilding and would be assessed as "obese" by the BMI even though they are fitter than most.

For example: I work out, have no visible fat, can run 10k under 50 minutes and still fall right into the "overweight" category because I lift weights. And I don't even consider myself particularly big.

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  • [–] 29 points 1 year ago (4 children)

    Meet height requirements twice a year as well? I wasn’t even aware the military even had height requirements, are folk shrinking or something?

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  • [–] 5 points 1 year ago

    They do have height requirements in the sense that they use such standardized equipment that you cant be either extremely tall or short and still serve. Like you cant be in the navy if you cant fit in the beds on a ship, which is logical. However that same person might be able to fit in somewhere outside the navy depending on how tall they are. But if youre 7 ft tall you probably just cant serve, as youre too tall not to be a liability in some way pretty much everywhere.

    That said, Im not aware of anyone whos height significantly fluctuates (outside of normal everyday fluctuations) on a month to month basis

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