I won't diet for my country.

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Kronos

Kronos

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From the Times this morning.

25,000 military personnel diagnosed as obese in the last 4 years.
32,000 failed the basic fitness tests in the past 3 years and interestingly not one high ranking officer even bothered taking the tests.

The was a program recently on TV about the Royal Marines, which I was in many years ago and the first program was about new recruits and their first fitness test which I noted where being run by a Physical training instructor (PTI) who was obviously overweight with a gut that matched mine a few years ago.

it occurred to me then that perhaps fitness was now taking a back seat as wars are fought more and more remotely but surely we still need foot soldiers and they need to be fit, just to carry all the equipment needed these days.

The story also mentioned the food that the military personal now get. If my memory serves we pretty much ate what we wanted, probably was less junk food than today, but we were always running about so burned off all the excess calories. Even after training we were still required to keep up a quite rigid exercise regime.

Times change I suppose and as usual a problem is noted but effectively ignored until it is perhaps to late.
 
This reminds me recently a football player for QPR (can't remember who) was not allowed to play because the manager said he hadn't kept himself fit. The pundits then spoke about whether or not this is the managers fault. Which I thought was absolute rubbish, being fit is part of your job it is your responsibility to make sure you are capable of doing your job.

I think you could make a parallel from that. A solider needs to be fit. It's part of the job. High ranking officers I think would be an excuse, is there a need for them to be fit? Depends how high up they are I suppose.
 
First hand info inbound!

Fitness is definitely not taking a back seat, I would say it is now more prominent than it ever has been. Having just been away, I was the only person not in the gym everyday (for the record I'm rake thin, only ever failed one fitness test 4 years ago whilst drunk) and the newer lads joining up are very much fitness orientated IMO.

The slightly older rounder ones also take fitness pretty seriously and I would say 95% of them pass every fitness test, and are regular gym goers.

The food however is a fair point. The canteen we have at work to eat during the working day only serves unhealthy food as a majority, whilst the other one across camp serves healthy food but is inaccessible to us during the day.
 
Mason- said:
This reminds me recently a football player for QPR (can't remember who) was not allowed to play because the manager said he hadn't kept himself fit. The pundits then spoke about whether or not this is the managers fault. Which I thought was absolute rubbish, being fit is part of your job it is your responsibility to make sure you are capable of doing your job.

I think you could make a parallel from that. A solider needs to be fit. It's part of the job. High ranking officers I think would be an excuse, is there a need for them to be fit? Depends how high up they are I suppose.
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Adel Taarabt
 
Boycey0211 said:
First hand info inbound!

Fitness is definitely not taking a back seat, I would say it is now more prominent than it ever has been. Having just been away, I was the only person not in the gym everyday (for the record I'm rake thin, only ever failed one fitness test 4 years ago whilst drunk) and the newer lads joining up are very much fitness orientated IMO.

The slightly older rounder ones also take fitness pretty seriously and I would say 95% of them pass every fitness test, and are regular gym goers.

The food however is a fair point. The canteen we have at work to eat during the working day only serves unhealthy food as a majority, whilst the other one across camp serves healthy food but is inaccessible to us during the day.
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Army?

I've seen very much the opposite in the RAF. Loads of guys fail it or come up with excuses not to do it. We don't get much encouragement to do phys though, it's far behind on the list of importance.
 
Begbie said:
Army?

I've seen very much the opposite in the RAF. Loads of guys fail it or come up with excuses not to do it. We don't get much encouragement to do phys though, it's far behind on the list of importance.
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Nope RAF, the few failures that there are generally have a good reason and pass it soon after, although I agree with the list of importance, we've lost our sport morning but you can still get time to do stuff if you want.
 
The PTI in the documentary was definitely a one off as I've seen most of the PTIs there and they are insanely fit. The Royal Marines still have fitness as a way of life. Some of the other services are a different matter though.
 
What does a soldiers bmi have to do with his fitness? (he could be high on bmi scale but fittest in his regime)
 
All these comments on BMI ETC are valid but the videos on the news of or troops in Afghanistan for example showed personnel who were definitely overweight. I suspect that these were mainly logistical personnel rather than frontline troops but that is no excuse.

And the PTI corporal, I mentioned in the OP, was without a doubt carrying a beer gut. We actually discussed him on a Royal Marine forum that I occasionally visit and we were pretty much in agreement that he was not a great example of the instructors who were at the peak of physical fitness that we all knew during our time in the RM, or at least when we were in training.
 
MrMoonX said:
Bet they were all navy, plenty of porky rates going round Pompey
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When I was in the navy I remember quite a few people used to fail their annual fitness test so that doesn't surprise me. I could do no CV over the entire year and still pass it on the day without issue but I guess it depends what branch you are in.
 
Pretty interesting that this has been raised.
Where I work we share a building with the police - I think they have classroom training facilities there and also IT support.
I can't believe the size of some of the officers - not support staff - officers. How the hell they're meant to catch a criminal is beyond me.
Don't get me wrong, some are obviously very fit and look after their fitness but others...jeez.
 
Boycey0211 said:
I haven't seen a BMI scale used since I joined, as you said it is largely irrelevant and some of the fittest people are indeed classed as 'obese'
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I went for my new doctors checkup the other week. She weighed me and measured me and told me that I'm mid way between over weight and obese! I'm obviously not but the stupid thing is I'll go down on the NHS statistics as being a fatty.
 
I used to be a prison officer, plenty of fatties there even with an annual fitness test! Mind you a one legged chimp could get to 5.4 on the beep test which was the standard, lol even if you were in the riot squad it was only 7.2
 
MrMoonX said:
I used to be a prison officer, plenty of fatties there even with an annual fitness test! Mind you a one legged chimp could get to 5.4 on the beep test which was the standard, lol even if you were in the riot squad it was only 7.2
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5.4 failing is just shocking, anyone (without any proper medical etc issues) should be able to get 5.4 your barely running by this point.

Ours is 9.10 and even this is pretty low I always thought.
 
Begbie said:
5.4 failing is just shocking, anyone (without any proper medical etc issues) should be able to get 5.4 your barely running by this point.

Ours is 9.10 and even this is pretty low I always thought.
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Yeah it's laughable it's not even a run as far as I'm concerned it's a quick warmup!

Even a prison service pti only needs lol 10

I know loads of people who were medically retired after failing at 5.4 ridiculous
 
I've not done phys in... a long time... I can still pass the tests though. They're pretty basic tests, and I do find it amazing how many fail, especially the fems.
 
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