Are Some Soldiers Too Fat to Fight?

Are the majority of the nation's military recruits between ages 17-34 just too fat to fight? The nation's youth is getting too obese for military service, and that's a security threat. Up to a quarter of potential recruits for military service in the USA are obese. See the article, Most U.S. youths unfit to serve, data show - MarineCorpsTimes.com.

The military's input on school lunches isn't happy with the sausage pizzas, corn dogs, and chicken nuggets kids are getting for breakfasts or the French fries, burgers, frozen breaded fish, or over-salted chicken patties served in school lunches. During World War II, military leaders reported that many recruits were rejected because poor nutrition created very short recruits.

Some suffered from rickets, rotten teeth, and other diseases of inadequate nutrition. After the war, military leaders pushed Congress to establish the national school lunch program so children would grow up healthier. Instead, schools can't afford to cook from scratch, and are simply heating up frozen, processed foods high in salt, fat, and sugars. Snacks, iceberg lettuce with little nutrition, and vending machine sodas are taking the place of healthy foods or even ethnic foods. Too many kids are snacking on processed sausages on pizza made with processed cheese.

And few are asking what's the processed cheese processed with--aluminum? In short, the children aren't getting a plate of raw green vegetables and tomatoes topped with whole beans and brown rice or other whole grains such as quinoa. It costs to much and schools are strapped for cash. A lot of farmers aren't able to get the fresh vegetables and whole fruits to schools because they can't afford the transportation. The produce rots in the fields.

In the meantime, kids are growing too obese for military service. They aren't exercising enough to get in shape, and their nutrition is poor in the eyes of military recruiters. How do we get kids back in shape so they can have military careers? Obesity is a security risk. If the USA can't get enough soldiers that aren't obese, who is going to defend the country--retired cops, paramedics, and firefighters? We need a strong defense corps, but the food isn't being eaten by youth. Military officers are blaming school lunches.

School lunches have been called a national security threat by a retired military officer, according to an April 20, 2010 MSNBC article by Associated Press writer, Mary Clare Jalonick, "School lunches called a national security threat."

How do we eliminate the security risk in Sacramento--related to obese military applicants? Start with school lunches and even school breakfasts. Too many kids are eating corn dogs for breakfast in schools and sausage pizzas or chicken nuggets for lunch. Instead, Sacramento school children should be taken on field trips to places that demonstrate and discuss or serve raw foods and vegetarian foods (with a permission slip from parents to consider the needs of children with food allergies).

Young people would be less likely to be too obese for military recruitment if they attended meetings of various vegetarian societies. Check out the site of the Sacramento Vegan Meetup Group. There should be vegan, raw foods, and vegetarian groups as well as nutrition groups for school-age children as well as the existing clubs for adults and families.

And schools should be taking kids on field trips to nutritional meetings--either based on vegan lifestyles, fish-and-fruit with vegetables-diets, ethnic foods that are healthy, and classes in nutrition starting in kindergarten. If money is absent, then volunteerism can start a group to introduce school kids to healthy lunches. The country's security is at stake if soldiers, police officers, and firefighters are obese because in youth they ate food that wasn't healthy or had the nutrition processed out of the food.

Look for live food events in Sacramento featuring raw and vegan foods. Come and join the vegan group for a fun and healthy night out. Laugh, socialize and have great food. Bring a friend and receive a discounted admission. See the website for the phone number or email: cultured.chef@yahoo.com.

Check out the various events from the Sacramento Raw Foods group called Raw Sacramento. It's also known sometimes as a memory jogger, as SacRawmento. Check out their Yahoo group site called Raw Sacramento. There are numerous postings about where to find affordable raw foods and products.

Also, check out the Sacramento Vegetarian Society. The Sacramento Vegetarian Society monthly potluck meets the third Sunday of each month in the Sacramento Natural Foods Co-op's Community Learning Center, 1914 Alhambra Blvd. near S. St.

They also have a Dineout site.The Sacramento Vegetarian Society usually organizes a dineout at a local restaurant on the second Saturday of each month. Check out their Calendar listings for other events of interest.

If you want to learn more about fructose, check out this posting on the Sacramento Raw Foods Yahoo Group. The message also details the effects of fructose on your body. For example, the posting reports the following pointers.

If children ate more tepary beans and less white rice, perhaps they wouldn't become too obese for military service. With the rise of type 2 diabetes in children, sometimes tepary beans are fed to Native American (and any other) children to help prevent type 2 diabetes and for general health. The beans were a healthy staple in the diet of Southwest Native Americans in the past few centuries.

You might start with the Native American and the story of healthy tepary beans grown all over the southwest. Check out the sites on tepary beans to get some facts and background. Or introduce tepary beans to people that work with diabetics or senior citizens looking for healthier foods with fiber.

One of the local places you can ask what month they have tepary beans in season (in 2009 it was February) is West Sacramento's Del Rio Botanical, consumer-supported agriculture. Ask them about their community-supported agriculture boxes. Check out Del Rio Botanical's website, The location is Peadbody Ranch, 20030 Old River Road, West Sacramento. Check out the site for the phone number.

According to a December 23, 2009 article in the Sacramento Bee, "Area school kids struggle to stay fit, keep off weight," by Diana Lambert, or the same date Sacramento Bee article, "Database: How many students in your child's school are unfit?" by Phillip Reese-- the statistics taken show how poverty is a factor in how schools perform on the state's test.

The study found that in most cases the more students at an elementary school eat federal lunch assisted free or reduced cost lunches, the more overweight the students are when tested in school. The conclusion seems to be that the poorer the childrens' parents are, the fatter the children. Poverty breeds overweight kids.

Basically, you have to be poor to qualify for a free lunch at school. The lunches are federally funded. Data show that family income is connected to how overweight the children are when measured at school. When kids get home, they find that their parents cannot afford to buy fruit and vegetables or lean meats. It's too expensive.

What's needed are community gardens where people can grow vegetables and fruits, and even learn how to preserve them so they can have vegetables and fruits year-round without worrying about the cost.

What parents living in poverty are buying for their children are cheap-priced starchy filler foods, meats that are not lean, and vegetables such as French fries, lots of bread or pizza dough, pancake mixes, and other white flour low-priced foods, including macaroni, some cheaper processed cheeses probably processed with aluminum, and lots of bread, the cheapest kinds of bread made with bleached flour or corn, white rice instead of brown rice, and other grain products they can find that's inexpensive.

The more limited your income, the more you'll buy foods high in calories because they'll fill you up fast. If your hunger is satisfied, you won't complain. That's why corn bread, white flour pancake mixes, and cheap hot dogs go a long way.

Kids living in poor neighborhoods don't play in their backyards. They toss balls such as footballs or soft balls in the gutter in front of their homes or apartment complexes. They can't go to the neighborhood parks because it's full of drug pushers or perverts, or at least that's what their parents tell them.

So they don't exercise outside of school as much as they should. If they play in front of their apartment complexes, the neighbors might complain about the noise. Most will park themselves in front of the TV set or play sedentary games in their homes or apartments. Their neighborhoods might find a community gym or social center helpful where they can get some exercise in an environment of safety with supervision.

According to California Physical Fitness Test results, Placer and El Dorado county school children were more fit than Sacramento and Yolo County kids. The study found that 29 percent of children in Sacramento County and 30 percent in Yolo County were overweight, compared with 21 percent in El Dorado County and 20 Percent in Placer County.

You have to consider the open areas for play that exist in the foothills compared to areas in Sacramento where there's a lot of poverty and little open spaces to safely play outside the home. For example, at Dyer-Kelly Elementary school in Sacramento, of 53 students tested, 64 percent were judged unhealthy, with 34 students having an unhealthy weight for their age. Each year, the state measures the body composition of fifth, seventh, and ninth graders. The state determines who falls outside a healthy weight range.

The state considers students with body fat percentages above 25 for boys or 32 for girls to be an unhealthy weight. A small number of students were judged underweight.

The poorer the neighborhood, generally the more children found to fall outside of a healthy weight zone. What's surprising is the finding, according to the Sacramento Bee article, that noted the link between students qualifying for the federally-funded free school lunch and overweight students. Does the free lunch have anything to do with the fact that overweight students ate it daily or even qualified for it based on their parent's incomes?

Or is the problem of overweight children more likely to be linked to the cheap starchy fillers they eat at home and the lack of exercise due to the unsafe environment in their neighborhoods? The problem is that not all poor schools did badly on the state test of who's a healthy weight. Thomas Jefferson Elementary in Placer Country did best, having the most students at a healthy weight.

Kids are struggling to stay trim. Is it a coincidence that in the school with the most children overweight, there's close to a 100 percent poverty rate in their neighborhoods? Some poor neighbor-based schools have very healthy weight children. What makes the difference? The state's public schools are required to post the results of fitness tests on their school accountability report cards and to give the results to students.

What good will this information do the students who need better nutrition but have less money to find it? Schools could develop programs to increase physical fitness levels by getting students to do things that they'll keep doing when they're adults, like walking, Qi Gong, Tai Chi, Yoga, or other fitness regimens that are not so energy-depleting that sedentary students will give up when they grow up. What can the students do? How about growing community vegetable and fruit gardens at the schools, even in small spaced areas?