A British newspaper revealed that 25 percent of British soldiers suffered from excessive weight gain during the past five years.
A local Arabic daily, quoting the Daily Mail revealed that one in every four British soldiers is overweight or obese. About 40,000 of the military’s 145,000 military personnel were classified as overweight or obese in the past five years. It reported that 5,200 obese or overweight British soldiers had been discharged on medical grounds since 2010.
The newspaper quoted statistics from the British Ministry of Defense that more than 1,100 soldiers had type 2 diabetes, which is linked to obesity, and that 1,113 soldiers suffered from high blood pressure, while more than 100 soldiers suffered from heart disease.
To combat this problem, doctors have prescribed diet pills to more than 850 soldiers since 2014, while more than 60 soldiers have undergone liposuction.
The newspaper quoted the former army chief, Lord Richard Dannatt, as saying that it was necessary to monitor young obese soldiers with great caution, calling for their demobilization if their weight could not be controlled.
The disclosure of this crisis followed warnings by the British Army’s Physical Training Officer.
The British Army uses the Body Composition Scale (BCM), which consists of a body mass index (BMI) and a waist measurement, in their risk assessments.
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