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55 percent of airmen overweight

More airmen today are overweight than fit, according to Air Force statistics, and nearly 12 percent are clinically obese.

Yet despite a four-year-old “fit to fight” program designed to get airmen into better physical shape, the Air Force has made almost no progress in improving fitness servicewide. Indeed, the obesity rate among airmen today is more than double what it was in 1995.

Service officials added fitness scores to enlisted performance reports a year ago.

But a new weight-reduction program now being implemented at Air Force Materiel Command bases — that includes punitive measures for those who fail to improve — may pave the way for a more stringent set of requirements throughout the service.

Acting on their own, AFMC officials are forging a series of instructive and punitive measures, including possible involuntary separations for airmen who fail to get their weight under control. Within 90 days of drawing a command’s attention, punitive action can be taken against any airman who “fails to progress or does not comply with directed intervention programs,” AFMC Vice Commander Lt. Gen. Terry Gabreski said in a statement.

Read: The AFMC plan

AFMC is acting alone, but it has the full support of the Air Force surgeon general’s office.

“The level of attention and resourcing to support [AFMC’s] initiative is really part of what we need to do as an Air Force to take on issues that impact our readiness, productivity and quality of life,” said Maj. Dana Whelan, deputy chief of health promotions, Air Force Medical Operations Agency.

Obesity is not just an Air Force problem; America’s obesity rate has also doubled in the past 20 years, to 34 percent. And among the military services, only the Navy, where 17 percent of sailors are obese and 62 percent overweight, has a bigger weight problem than the Air Force.

Still, commanders at each AFMC base are finalizing programs that will target obese airmen with the goal set by AFMC commander Gen. Bruce Carlson to reduce the command’s obesity rate by 20 percent this year.

It’s tough to imagine the rest of the service won’t mimic AFMC’s new program if it can attain that goal, said Col. R.C. Shofner, deputy director, strategic plans and programs, Headquarters AFMC.

And with nearly 12 percent in the obese category, that would put 39,000 airmen on a diet.

Statistics: How many airmen are overweight?

Although you shouldn’t expect wholesale changes to the fitness test like the ones that occurred in 2004, Col. Michael Snedecor, chief of the public health division at the Air Force Medical Operations Agency, said the Air Force is in the early stages of devising a plan to attach levels of health warnings to certain fitness scores. For example, when you do your mile-and-a-half run, a slow time could be matched with a warning from service health officials about your increased risk of heart disease.

Airmen such as Tech. Sgt. Samantha Lyman, a physical fitness training leader at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, Ohio, said it might also be time to re-examine how tough the fitness test is and how the service separates those who can’t pass it.

Statistics: Obese Airmen

Although almost 12 percent of the force is obese, 94 percent of airmen received a passing score — 75 or above — on the fitness test last year. Airmen who don’t pass are given at least a year to bump up their score before consideration is given to separating them. Of the roughly 39,000 airmen considered obese according to last year’s numbers, only 156 were separated because of a failure to pass fitness standards.

“The PT test needs to be revamped a bit,” Lyman said. “I think it needs to be harder than what it is.”

To enact those kinds of changes, Whelan said, top Air Force leaders will have to take notice. Local commanders oversee their units’ physical fitness program and may need to increase the difficulty and frequency of physical training sessions to drop the service’s obesity rate, she said.

“When you look at what it takes to promote weight loss and/or maintenance of healthy body weight, it may require more activity than we’re currently supporting or is provided by minimal levels” of physical fitness training, Whelan said.

To make real strides toward a healthy force, nutritionists and health officials said, the onus will be on airmen to make better food choices, and Air Force leaders need to provide healthier options.

Officials continually point to military dining facilities and nutritious options provided in the cafeteria line, but according to the 2005 Defense Department study, airmen eat only 12 percent of their meals in these facilities. Comparatively, airmen eat 22 percent of their meals at restaurants both on and off base.

Read: What’s on the menu

“There have been a lot of initiatives for the dining facilities, but it’s a small piece of the pie of the meals the airmen consume,” Whelan said.

To encourage more airmen to eat at the military dining facilities, said Jim Halvorson, chief of Air Force Services Operations Division, the service is transforming its base options to replicate university and corporate campuses’ style of dining that features healthy “pod feeding.” The pods refer to multiple spots on base where airmen could eat at military dining facilities.

Airmen could use their meal cards at places such as the enlisted club and the golf course, as well as the main cafeteria. As part of this plan, the Air Force is also working on providing more nutritious options at these places, Halvorson said.

For overweight or obese airmen, Dr. Dympna Gallagher, director of the Human Body Composition Core Laboratory of the New York Obesity Research Center, offers three simple tips to trim down — outside of the general recommendations to eat healthier foods and exercise more:

* Read labels and know exactly what you’re eating. Count the number of calories you need to burn each day. “Some may say, I only eat a bagel in the morning. But bagels can vary from 150 to 500 calories,” she said.

* Be more active. Don’t just join a gym and think that’s all you have to do, because more often than not people lose focus and stop going, Gallagher said. Instead, incorporate exercise into your daily life. Take the steps, not the elevator. Or walk the extra 10 blocks instead of jumping into a taxi.

* Monitor how many hours you spend in front of a screen. In the Air Force, especially, airmen already spend a chunk of their workday sitting in front of a computer screen. When they combine that with the hours spent online chatting or watching television, airmen may be shocked to see how much of their time is spent sitting down, she said.

Given the obesity rate and the fact that most airmen are overweight, Air Force officials say it’s time to ramp up fitness programs and education programs for airmen to make healthy choices. Whelan called for Air Force leaders to formulate an action plan to boost these two prerogatives.

Theresa Siejack, chief of health promotions at Wright-Patterson, said AFMC’s body mass index program will help, but the Air Force needs to continue to promote healthier lifestyles servicewide: “Not to address it — to ignore it — is not the right thing to do.”

Discuss: The Air Force PT program