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Navy secretary to increase body fat limits to make service friendly for women

By on May 14, 2015 at 3:53 pm
pinching fat

Secretary of the Navy Ray Mabus wants more women in the military, and Wednesday unveiled a slew of policies designed to make the service more attractive to women and, incidentally, to revamp physical fitness standards.

During a speech at the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis, Md., Mabus reiterated the phrase so emblematic to his tenure as secretary, namely that more women means a diverse force, and “a more diverse force is a stronger force.” The current figures stand at 18% for the Navy, compared with just 5% for the Marine Corps.

To meet the 2019 female recruitment goal of 25%, policies will have to change.

“Both our platforms and our career paths will allow for equal service opportunities. That is why I’m personally committed to opening all operational billets to women,” Mabus said at the event.

Earlier this year, Mabus created a Navy Task Force Innovation Group to try and sidestep “briar patch of bureaucracy” in which proposals are often lost.

One of the most notable proposals to emerge is a complete revamping of the standard Physical Fitness Assessment (PFA) to remove the outdated and simplistic pass/fail system. The Chief of Naval Personnel’s office has also been at work for some time looking at the way the Navy measures body fat. Based on the office’s research, Mabus thinks the body fat limit needs to move upward.

Why? Because women have a much percentage of body fat than men. Between the ages of 17-39, the allowable limit for men is 22% body fat, whereas for women of the same age bracket, the number shoots up to 33%.

The American Council on Exercise states that 32% body fat and above counts as obese for women, and for men that number drops to 25% plus. This means that based on current standards there’s absolutely no wiggle room for women in the Navy between the ages of 17-39. Any movement upward in the percentage of allowable body fat means that any women who passes under that new standard will, according to ACE’s definition, count as obese.

What exactly are the new upper limits for body fat?

“That’s what we’re looking at right now,” Chris Servello, spokesman for the chief of naval personnel, told The Daily Caller News Foundation. Said Servello:

We want this to be about health and not simply body shape. Our current way of measuring fat is based on a measuring tape and from those measurements we derive a body fat percentage. We’re going to take a hard look at this and make sure that we aren’t unnecessarily pushing people out of the Navy. At the end of the day, that’s what it’s about: health. We expect to have the updated body fat standards here within a few weeks.

A book on military readiness released by the Institute of Medicine in 1998 relied on three large surveys of active-duty Navy men and women, with one of the studies concluding that 9% of the women exceeded body fat standards. Additionally, 47% perceived themselves as being overweight.

“In the Navy alone, we separate 1500 people a year for failing the PFA,” Mabus noted. “That wastes our time and resources.  In our new culture of fitness, we change the way we measure body fat, supplement PFA cycles with physical readiness spot-checks, and document performance on Fitness Reports and Evals.”

Another one of the policies proposed is to double maternity leave to 12 weeks. More women in the service creates a need for more services like child daycare. The plan is to extend how long child care development centers are open by two hours on each end.

Mabus did not mention how much the proposals will cost. However, because women leave the Navy early at double the rate of men, officials think spending additional funds to boost retention rates is a solid decision, especially as officials urge more women to join.

Not all of the proposals are equal. Mabus has authority to bring some into being, but for others, like extending maternity leave, Congress retains the final say.

This report, by Jonah Bennett, was cross-posted by arrangement with the Daily Caller News Foundation.

 

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  • NaCly Dog

    Huh. The facts do not seem to support the conclusions.

    We seem to be spending a lot of time, money and effort in expanding the Naval Service with individuals, who, on aggregate, leave at a much higher rate. That’s a lot of training and potential lost.

    I do understand the politics of everyone participating in the Service. But less dollars (esp. SCN) may put too much pressure on these personnel policies.

    Here is a thought-experiment on basic questions. Is the Navy small enough these days to have all male crews at sea? What do we lose, besides some very talented individuals and skill sets? Do we gain in crew cohesion and combat readiness?

    FWIW, I went through the transformation of all male crews to mixed crews back in the day. I used to firmly believe in mixed crews, but a number of incidents has led me to question that policy.

    **cough, cough** USS Cowpens (CG-63) **cough, cough**.

    • http://www.virginiaconservative.blogspot.com/ BobMbx

      Did you serve under Captain Bligh?

      • NaCly Dog

        I was out before she assumed command. The Jagmans from 3 COs in a row, starting with Capt. Graf, are interesting reading. My favorite is the Chief Engineer, acting XO, and SWO LCDR Destiny Savage.

        I did serve under one of the heirs to the original Capt. Bligh. but only for a very long six months, back in the day.

      • http://www.virginiaconservative.blogspot.com/ BobMbx

        When I first read about this all I could think was that it was a story you’d find in Hustler Magazine.
        “I never thought it would happen to me. I am the CO of a US Navy cruiser, and it all started when Destiny Savage walked onboard………”
        No sailor can read that story and not giggle.

    • PaulMurrayCbr

      Indeed. Another thought-experiment is this: If the USA stopped invading other people’s countries, how much of a Navy would it actually need to secure its borders? What if it released its various protectorates (Hawaii, the marshall islands, etc)?

      • NaCly Dog

        Let me clue you in.

        1) Hawaii is an integral part of the US of A. It’s a state equal to the other 49 states. Whatever issue you have with actions in 1893 and 1898 has been overtaken by events.

        2) The Marshall Island are in free association with the US. It is a tax haven and a welfare state, but it is free to leave anytime, if they want to. From a US tax payer prospective, the MIs are not a profit center.

        3) Peace between Great Powers is underpinned by the US Navy, including the boomers. Unimpeded maritime trading leads to prosperity in all nations with access to the oceans – the global commons. More trade leads to less large wars.

        This requires a large force preventing non-state actors from pirating. The Royal Navy did that starting two centuries ago. The USN used to be large and active enough to keep ocean traffic free. The size of the US Navy is inversely proportional to the amount of piracy occurring.

        4) The Navy does not really act to secure the US borders at sea. The Coast Guard does that.

        5) Unlike Russia, the US is not fighting or invading other countries to expand their territory. Likewise, China is expanding territory (South China Seas) in defiance of customary international law on freedom of navigation.

        6) So the US War of 1941-1945 was bad?

  • https://www.teepublic.com/user/ECM ECM

    “In the Navy alone, we separate 1500 people a year for failing the PFA,” Mabus noted. “That wastes our time and resources. In our new culture of fitness, we change the way we measure body fat, supplement PFA cycles with physical readiness spot-checks, and document performance on Fitness Reports and Evals.”

    In other words, under “the new culture of fitness”, the obese will now be defined as fit, because we said so.

    And…

    Mabus did not mention how much the proposals will cost. However, because women leave the Navy early at double the rate of men, officials think spending additional funds to boost retention rates is a solid decision, especially as officials urge more women to join.

    So, in other words, they’ll make up for the loss rates in volume????

    (We have completely lost our minds.)

  • J.e. Dyer

    It’s certainly a policy move that should come in for criticism.

    That said, criticism should start with the hilariously crude method by which body fat is measured in the Navy. In every job I held, I had fit sailors who maxed the PRT and looked sharp in uniform, with no weight problems, but who literally pegged as “obese” because their neck-to-waist measurement ratio was out of tolerance.

    This problem mostly hit very fit but solidly built sailors with the “apple” type physique: the people of either sex who carry weight above the waistline, and tend to have larger waists compared to their neck size. But it could also hit naturally thin sailors, especially men whose necks were stick-like.

    Navy policy would swing one way and another. Sometimes my chief(s) and I would have to wear ourselves out getting waivers for these people. At other times, the Navy accepted height-weight as controlling, and ignored the body fat calculation.

    There were also sailors who weren’t fit, and looked overweight, but who slid through just under the line because they happened to have big necks. This systemic advantage was rarely found in women sailors.

    BMI calculation had its own problems, but it had the virtue of eliminating neck size as a make-or-break datum. None of it is an exact science.

    • NaCly Dog

      I heard an interesting rant from a uniformed female NRI / BuMed researcher back in the day. She was adversely affected by the Navy policy, although she was fit, even after 4 kids.

      Using wrist measurements was part of it. There were plenty of ways to calculate muscle to fat ratios, and ISTR MRIs or ultrasound can be used to get a real data point.

      Fitness as measured by realistic performance tests could be part of the solution. Examples can be take an air pack (OBA and Nomex suit in my day) and a charged hose up an escape trunk, or dog a hatch against pressure, or swim a certain distance in shoes and NWU.

      We know the controlling datum for all promotions from the 82 year group to today is the oblique photo. Look bad, get a new career. Merit does not apply.

  • antiliberalcryptonite
  • http://www.bibleversusconstitution.org/ Ted R. Weiland

    “Take ye the sum of all the congregation … every MALE by their polls; from [not twenty-one or eighteen, but] twenty years old and upward, all that are able to go forth to war….” (Numbers 1:2-3)

    This just one of many instances where the Constitutional Republic is in defiance of Yahweh’s laws of warfare.

    “…The power to declare war is a serious responsibility. Why were the framers so vague in defining the parameters of war and the conditions under which it could be declared? Section 8, Clause 11 is the only place of significance where warfare is mentioned in the Constitution. Little wonder this power has been abused. Luther Martin [one of Maryland’s delegates to the Constitutional Convention] protested:

    ‘…the congress have also a power given them to raise and support armies, without any limitation as to numbers, and without any restriction in time of peace. Thus, sir, this plan of government, instead of guarding against a standing army, that engine of arbitrary power, which has so often and so successfully been used for the subversion of freedom, has in its formation given it an express and constitutional sanction….’40….

    “Because the framers provided no Biblical parameters, unbiblical warfare has been the rule ever since. Following is a list of the countries bombed by the United States since World War II:….

    “From 1945 to the present, the United States has bombed nineteen different countries under the guise of defending America’s sovereignty and promoting democracy. But America is none the better for it, and not one of these countries has become a legitimate democracy – not that this would be anything to celebrate. Something is amiss. Wars fought for political gain or financial profit can only be classified as ungodly acts of aggression….”

    For more on biblical warfare (neglected and violated by the Constitution), see online Chapter 4 “Article 1: Legislative Usurpation” of “Bible Law vs. the United States Constitution: The Christian Perspective.” Click on my name, then our website. Go to our Online Books page, click on the top entry, and scroll down to Chapter 4.

  • Gregory Alan of Johnson

    If more women get killed in “war”, then there will be less to bear children and lower the “surplus” population.