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n2doc

(47,953 posts)
Tue Apr 21, 2015, 04:39 PM Apr 2015

America: Too fat to fight

By Carol Costello

Soon, America will be too fat to fight.

Forget about rampant diabetes, heart attacks and joint problems -- the scariest consequence arising out of our losing battle with the bulge is the safety of our country.

In about five years, so many young Americans will be grossly overweight that the military will be unable to recruit enough qualified soldiers. That alarming forecast comes from Maj, Gen. Allen Batschelet, who is in charge of U.S. Army Recruiting Command.

Obesity, he told me, "is becoming a national security issue."

I was so taken aback by Batschelet's statement that I felt the need to press him. Come on! Obesity? A national security crisis? The General didn't blink. "In my view, yes."

more
http://www.cnn.com/2015/04/21/opinions/costello-america-fat/index.html

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herding cats

(19,564 posts)
1. Donuts for pacifist?
Tue Apr 21, 2015, 04:47 PM
Apr 2015

Krispy Kreme and Dunkin Donuts for everybody! If we can export enough of them we just may get world peace.

 

Hoyt

(54,770 posts)
2. I guess it's fortunate that nowadays we pretty much push buttons and fly drones when we feel the
Tue Apr 21, 2015, 04:47 PM
Apr 2015

need to bomb someone. Eat away.

Hopefully someday we will get in shape for health's sake, not so the generals can make war.

Binkie The Clown

(7,911 posts)
4. And people still talk about a revolution in the U.S.
Tue Apr 21, 2015, 05:06 PM
Apr 2015

like it could really happen.

Americans are too fat and lazy to revolt, even if they had a clue about why and how, which they don't.

appalachiablue

(41,132 posts)
5. That's about the size of it unfortunately. Besides inactivity, look to toxic highly processed food.
Tue Apr 21, 2015, 05:35 PM
Apr 2015

I read that people who live in suburbs are 6-10 lbs. heavier as in automobiles, few pedestrians and parks and ample fast food places. The Woodstock movie from 5 or so years ago had difficulty finding young people to cast because so many are fat now according to news items. Growing nation of keyboard warriors?

Warpy

(111,261 posts)
7. It's easy to blame cars and fast food, but both of those have existed for a long time
Tue Apr 21, 2015, 06:25 PM
Apr 2015

and don't explain what has happened to us over the last 25 years. Neither does anything else the media like to hit on, like HCFS or Roundup.

Recent research has discovered a sharp difference in intestinal flora between obese and non obese people. There might be a treatment coming out of that research fairly soon, if it holds up. Other research has implicated viruses, most notably adenovirus serotype 36. It's just abundantly clear it's not all lifestyle or food choices.

The diet industry has failed us miserably, as regaining the weight is a nearly universal phenomenon.

Blaming fat people for being fat is probably the worst strategy of all, yet fat shaming is one of the last socially acceptable bigotries.

The obesity puzzle is crying out for a solution. It would be nice to stop diverting precious NIH dollars into continually disproving Andrew Wakefield and get them spent on real research, instead, especially obesity research.

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