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Fitness crackdown pushed to war zones

Combat deployments come with a long list of stressors.

The seemingly endless cycle of workdays, Spartan living conditions, distance from family. Add the chance of death or disability from a sniper’s bullet or roadside bomb, and it’s easy to get discouraged.

Now, Marines can add one more anxiety to the list — worrying about getting fat.

That’s the message the Corps sent out April 23, when senior leaders revoked the combat-zone exemption for the Body Composition Program. Now, some Marines will have to fight their weight while fighting the enemy, or risk a blemish on their permanent record.

“Deployment to a combat zone no longer automatically places affected Marines in an inactive [Body Composition Program] status,” a Corps-wide message announced April 23.

It’s the latest step in Commandant Gen. James Conway’s crackdown on all things related to fitness and appearance. Also approaching in the coming months: body fat standards are expected to tighten, a new Combat Fitness Test will be finalized and a new Military Appearance Program will give commanders a broad — and subjective — tool for controlling how Marines look.

The latest move reverses the December 2005 directive that allowed commanders to suspend the BCP program “due to the inherent difficulties and impracticalities associated with monitoring Marines assigned to the BCP while in a combat zone.”

Now, commanders who don’t want to monitor Marines on the BCP will have to get a formal waiver from senior leaders. Approval will depend on the “unit type and anticipated area of operation.”

The new rule may not have much effect on Marines who are not already assigned to a BCP, since most commanders conduct the routine, semi-annual body fat tests before and after deployments. It will affect Marines who have failed the body fat test and have been placed on the BCP, which typically involves remedial fitness and nutritional counseling.

Marines will continue to be exempt from the Physical Fitness Test while deployed.

Various opinions on policy

Some Marines supported the new policy.

“Marines falling out of shape, when their conditioning affects whether they and their fellow Marines live or die, is not something that we should accept,” one corporal said.

Others suggested the change will mean little in practice.

“The dining facilities are great out there, but the discipline it takes is no different than if you were back here. It’s up to the individual to still do what is required,” said Sgt. Maj. Scott Mykoo of Marine Aviation Logistics Squadron 31 in Beaufort, S.C. “What they’re saying is: ‘We’re going to hold you to a certain standard.’”

The Army currently does not exempt deployed soldiers from weight and body fat requirements.

Enlisted Marines who have been placed on the BCP will be ineligible for promotion no matter whether their unit has received a waiver. The only exemption will be “meritorious combat promotion for heroic actions in combat,” the message said. Officers, on the other hand, only will see their promotions delayed if their commander says they do not meet the physical qualifications, regardless of combat zone assignment or BCP status.

For Marines who have already failed to meet the body fat standards and were placed in a remedial program, their next fitness report will be adverse, no matter whether the Marine has deployed with a combat unit, according to the new rules.

The current body fat standards are 18 percent for men and 26 percent for women. Under the existing rules, Marines can go up to 22 percent for men and 30 percent for women if they score a First Class on the Physical Fitness Test.

Those rules are expected to change soon. Under the new system that will take effect this summer, Marines will get no special consideration for scoring a top-notch PFT. Instead, the new standards will be stair-stepped to rise as a Marine gets older.

Rising percentages

Under the new policy, allowable body fat percentages rise over time:

* Age 26 and younger: 18 percent for males and 26 percent for females.

* Age 27-39: 19 percent for males and 27 percent for females.

* Age 40-45: 20 percent for males and 28 percent for females.

* Age 46 and up: 21 percent for males and 29 percent for females.

Officials say those new rules will be formally unveiled in June, followed by a grace period of about 60 days for Marines to get into compliance. After that, commanders will begin enforcing them, officials said.

In the past, the body fat standards have been enforced sporadically and arbitrarily, a study last year by the Marine Corps Inspector General found. The investigators visited 19 units to assess the Marines’ body composition and the enforcement efforts of their commanders.

After rounding up more than 4,500 Marines, they screened out Marines who scored higher than 200 on their recent physical fitness test and zeroed in on 481 of them for the study.

They found that only about 1-in-3 overweight Marines was enrolled in a remedial program as required.

Marines who were placed into the remedial program were disproportionately from the lower enlisted ranks. While Marines from all ranks failed the tests, 85 percent of those ultimately sent to the remedial program were sergeants or below, the IG study found.

Some grumbled that the overall crackdown may be bad for morale.

“Authorities may have significantly underestimated the consequences of these severe BCP crackdown changes,” said one former Marine familiar with the policy. “The risk of being promoted behind one’s peers, or not at all, is not something Marines take lightly.

“Although authorities may have been counting upon this fear or threat as a means toward successful enforcement, they may have underestimated the extreme offense Marines will take to the resulting implication of their combat service being underappreciated relative to the authorities’ hang-up with personal appearance.”

DISCUSS: Too much, or the right mix