Too Fat to Fight

Copyright WIRED magazine

Both US and China's military leaders are facing up to potential problems with recruiting battle-fit recruits  Wired reports,

• The state-controlled China Daily reported Wednesday that China’s National People’s Congress is loosening the standards for overweight recruits in the People’s Liberation Army (PLA). China’s wanna-be soldiers can now super-size that order of szechuan beef without fear of discrimination as long they don’t tip the scales further than 25 percent of the  normal weight requirements — a 5 percent uptick from last year.

 Reports suggest that 25% of Chinese are overweight or obese.  The US ex-military are launching an initiative to address this problem,

• At the intersection of fat-shaming and war-mongering comes a bizarre public health campaign: an effort by retired generals and admirals to ban sugary sodas and snacks from public schools. The kids today, say the former brass, are too fat to fight for their country.

 There is even talk of transplanting brown fat to obese soldiers in a bid to tackle this problem