Withering Away

The Navy physical fitness test, which includes a weigh-in, comes twice a year and all personnel are aware of the consequences of failure. But the Navy is no different from the rest of the country and for many people weight is a constant battle. For those people the weigh-in is often enough to push them to, or sometimes over, the edge.

If a service member is overweight the Navy provides a Plan B and a body fat analysis is, very inaccurately, performed with a tape measure and a guess at the actual location of the waist. If the member is 22% or less body fat, they are deemed fit and able to keep their job. The theory is that the super-fit, because muscle weighs a good deal more than fat, would fail the weigh-in and so they are allowed to pass through the gate of the tape measure. In actuality the taping process is subjective, encourages a less than honest body fat analysis, and labels some considerably overweight people "within standards".

I do not believe that there is a strong correlation between weight and job performance. I am also not in the habit of failing my friends.

This morning was weigh-in, which means last night a handful of men were downing laxatives, guzzling a diuretic of choice, running in sauna suits, and smearing tubes of Preparation-H across their midsections and then sealing it to their skin with a roll of plastic wrap (it temporarily takes off inches).

CE2 and I administer the weigh-in. I record height and weight and I make sure to give the thicker guys an extra inch in height. After that CE2 tapes the failures taking two inches off the actual waist measurement and adding an inch to the neck measurement. This morning, with our subtle coaxing of height, waist, and neck measurements, we managed to pass everyone.

Now several of the less-than-svelte set are walking around like they're hot shit.

It makes me smile.