Young Americans Too Fat To Fight

The proportion of young Americans that are too fat to fight or serve in the military is so high that it poses a threat to US national security, according to a group of retired military leaders who are calling on Congress to pass new child nutrition legislation to address the problem.

Writing in the Washington Post on Friday, retired US army generals John M. Shalikashvili and Hugh Shelton, referred to several sources, including the US Army’s own analysis of national data that shows as of 2005, and the figures have changed little since, 27 per cent of Americans aged 17 to 24, some 9 million young adults, were too overweight to serve in the military.

The leading medical reason recruits are rejected for military service in the US today is being overweight or obese, wrote Shalikashvili and Shelton, both members of the executive advisory council of Mission: Readiness, a nonprofit organization of retired senior military leaders, who referred also to a recent report from the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research that showed over the last 15 years the proportion of potential recruits who have not passed their physical exam because of their weight has gone up nearly 70 per cent.

This is backed up by data from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) who report that the number of states where 40 per cent or more of young adults are overweight or obese has risen dramatically from only one in 1998 to 39 in 2008.

This not the first time the military has spoken out about how the health of America’s children poses a threat to national security: the last time was in 1945 when they expressed concern about the poor health and nutrition of potential recruits, and Congress responded by creating a national school lunch program. Read more

Young Men Consuming An Alarming Amount Of Salt

Young Swedish men are consuming at least double the recommended amount of salt according to a study carried out by the Sahlgrenska Academy at the University of Gothenburg and Sahlgrenska University Hospital.

“It’s alarming that young Swedish men are consuming so much salt, and something needs to be done about it. We can really only speculate on the consequences of such a high salt intake later on in life, in the form of cardiovascular diseases and stroke,” says Lena Hulthén, Professor in Clinical Nutrition at the Sahlgrenska Academy.

The study included almost a hundred men in their twenties. Urine samples from all participants were analysed over a 24-hour period. The participants also answered questions about their eating habits. The urine samples showed that the young men were consuming at least two times the World Health Organisation’s recommended daily intake of six grams.

“High salt intake can lead to high blood pressure, but we couldn’t detect any connection in our study. High blood pressure doesn’t usually develop until a person is in their 30s or 40s, since the kidneys’ ability to deal with the excess salt deteriorates with age,” says Lena Hulthén.

Salt in food is found largely in ready meals such as pizza and frozen meat hash, but it is also in bread, cheese, meat sandwich fillings, fish products, breakfast cereals and other products produced by the food industry. An earlier Danish study has shown that only a tenth of the salt that we consume comes from our own salt cellars. Read more

Next Page »