Military Review English Edition March-April 2016 | Page 74
intra-abdominally.14 Women’s
bodies, by contrast, protect the
abdomen and preferentially
distribute fat to subcutaneous
sites. For men, this intra-abdominal fat accumulation leads
to acute as well as long-term
health consequences from
associated metabolic derangements, and this occurs at lower
levels of adiposity than it does
for women.15 Impaired glucose regulation, with a largely
undiagnosed but high prevalence in the United States today,
also affects a soldier’s cognitive
performance. The burden of
measuring and enforcing fat
standards is, arguably, greater
(Photo courtesy of the National Archives and Records Administration)
with men than with women.
Women’s Army Auxiliary Corps (WAAC) volunteer recruits climb an obstacle during physExcess fat in women can be
ical training in 1943 at an Army Air Forces Training Command base.
reasonably monitored with a simIn July 1942, 440 women, including forty African-Americans, began WAAC basic
ple body mass index calculation,
officer training at Fort Des Moines, Iowa. Proper clothing was an immediate issue since
but this approach is inadequate
no uniforms had yet been designed specifically for women, and availability of smaller-size
for assessment in men because
combat fatigues and footwear was limited. Obtaining appropriate duty uniforms in proper
their greater variability in lean
sizes remained an issue for the remainder of the war. Basic combat training drills were the
same as regular Army training except women were not issued fatigue uniforms or weapmass confounds the measureons.26 Press interviews “revealed that the average officer candidate was twenty-five years
ment.16 This makes it necessary
old, had attended college, and was working as an office administrator, executive secretary,
to estimate the percentage of
or teacher. One out of every five had enlisted because a male member of her family was in
the armed forces and she wanted to help him get home sooner. Several were combat widbody fat. Estimation of the perows of Pearl Harbor and Bataan. One woman enlisted because her son, of fighting age, had
centage body fat involves measurbeen injured in an automobile accident and was unable to serve. Another joined because
ing abdominal circumference to
there were no men of fighting age in her family. All of the women professed a desire to aid
27
capture the dominant site of male
their country in time of need by ‘releasing a man for combat duty.’”
pattern fat deposition. As it turns
special operations or combat jobs, longitudinal physical
out, this site also conveniently represents the fat deposit
training studies would be needed, but these are difficult most associated with cardiovascular and metabolic health
and expensive. When some of these kinds of studies
risks, a primary marker of underexercise and overnutrifinally were conducted to test concepts of strength
tion, and the key offender of military appearance stanimprovement in women (accompanied by newspaper
dards. Abdominal fat in men is also a sensitive biomarker
headlines about the Army attempting to create “female
of longstanding psychological stress.17
Rambos”), it was astonishing to discover the high trainThese facts indicate that any easing of body fat
ability of men and women.13
standards would have a greater impact on the health
and performance of men. The Army probably would
Body Fat Standards and
not have needed to implement body fat standards,
Cardiovascular Health Risks
as was done in 1983, in an all-women’s or mostly
The big problem for men is that their bodwomen’s Army. In the men’s Army of 2015, the apies store the first thirty kilograms of excess fat
proach to body composition management measures
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March-April 2016 MILITARY REVIEW