Obesity: A Matter of National Security
As Americans it seems we keep making the mistake that obesity and all its related ills are a problem to be solved by exercise, which is a clear mistake. And the US military is no exception.
Recently I was flipping through a fitness industry rag that I subscribe to and stumbled upon an article about the problem obesity is causing in the US military. It stated that “the rate of overweight and obesity among active-duty members of the US military is now at 68% and poses a risk to national security.”
That’s an alarming statistic, but it shouldn’t be overly surprising considering it roughly mirrors the rate of overweight and obesity in the general American public. So what are we to do?
The article goes on to say that one of the solutions to the problem, and the only one mentioned therein, was to provide greater availability of fitness facilities to “allow better access to places to work out and get in shape.
Nevermind that the term “in shape” is vague and meaningless, the greater issue is that the strategy is wholly inept. More fitness facilities won’t fix the problem, but a deeper look at what military personnel are eating might.
While there are many factors that need to be taken into account when tackling obesity, the one with the most leverage is very clearly food intake. The mechanisms of gaining weight are not a mystery. While hormones, sleep, stress, genetics, and yes, exercise, are all factors that contribute to whether or not we gain weight, the fundamental physics of the situation are clear.
The only way to gain a substantial amount of weight is to consistently consume more calories than one burns. That is the indisputable fact of the matter. If you have a bucket under a spigot (calorie intake) that also has a hole in the bottom (calorie burn) it’s easy to imagine that more inflow than outflow will cause the water level in the bucket to rise. The inverse will cause the water level to fall.
A rising water level in the bucket and you’re gaining weight; falling, and you’re losing weight. Interestingly we gain far better leverage over the situation by reducing inflow from the spigot than we do trying to drill a larger hole in the bottom of the bucket.
For example, one 20oz bottle of Coke has 65g of sugar and roughly 260cal. Drinking this bottle of coke could happen in a matter of a few minutes. However it would take an average person roughly half an hour of intense exercise to burn that much energy.
That might sound just fine until you consider that drinking the coke in the first place does very little to satiate any existing hunger due to the lack of protein, fat, or fiber. And the half hour of intense exercise would predictably cause a dramatic rise in hunger, understandably leading to further subsequent caloric intake.
This feed forward mechanism of consumption driven by exercise is one of the primary reasons we can’t outwork a bad diet. The assertion that to lose weight one needs to exercise more implies holding calorie intake constant while increasing exercise to improve calorie balance. To hold food consumption constant and increase exercise you’re prescribing to anyone willing to try that they endure a serious amount of hunger.
Hunger is not a feeling humans are well equipped to live with over a long enough period to experience substantial weight loss, especially in an environment of ever present, highly palatable, processed junk food. If you don’t believe me, try going without eating for eight hours and then open the refrigerator. What foods call to you the loudest? I’ll give you a hint, it’s not the chicken and broccoli.
While there are likely many effective ways to approach the obesity epidemic in the military, more exercise is not one of them. What might work better is encouraging service members to eat a high protein, whole food based diet rich with meat, fruit, and vegetables. Eating a whole food based diet can very effectively reduce caloric intake while keeping individuals satiated so they’re not fighting long term hunger. This improves long term sustainability necessary to cause a reversal in obesity.
Providing access to these fresh foods whenever possible and reducing availability of highly processed foods could meaningfully reverse the spread of obesity and chronic disease and improve our military’s readiness level, which has apparently become an issue of national security.
Moreover, we need to stop perpetuating the fallacy that it’s a lack of exercise that’s solely causing the obesity epidemic. While exercise is a powerful part of a healthy lifestyle it’s a weak and ineffective leverage point for reversing obesity and chronic disease.