Our current military personnel is composed of less than 1% of the country.

The intention is good, though the justification - military readiness - is a joke. We need to slim down mostly because of what it's done to collective healthcare costs.

Speaking of diets, the military budget needs to go on a big one. :)

Gee we agree again....ALTHOUGH your 1% figure is meaningless. Every time (in my life) that the newspapers started talking about a "shortage of able recruits" it meant we were about to head into another war.

I only get behind Republican wars, it's the American way!

How's that? I only see it as a potential issue if there is some attempt to revive the draft, which not many politicians have been nutty enough to propose.

Yikes, don't say that outloud and give 'em ideas.

In theory, I absolutely agree, though the rich and powerful will always find ways to duck the draft. The rich that managed to get netted in Vietnam were typically REMF officer types, not front line sacrifices, which fell mostly to the lower and lower middle classes.

I don't know how old your kids are, though I'm not willing to support a draft that could possibly send my kids (or yours, or anyone else's) as sacrificial lambs to die in some meaningless fight to prove a point.

Though neoconservatism clearly isn't dead, I think it took a significant blow after Iraq. The resistance to needless intervention has been strengthening on the left and right. If that resistance continues to grow, especially in moderate circles (not just the fringes) and we start electing more politicians that reflect this value, I think there is hope for the future in this regard. (I could be naive in this hope, though I will continue to hope.)

I just do not hear the outrage against Obama's incursions that I heard during Bush's or for that matter Johnson/Nixon's.

We are becoming a Nation of sheep lead by their beneficent kindly masters who will eventually lead us to slaughter in some third world backwater. Which is funny because our real enemy should be China against which we will never fight a war.

C'mon, Tux, you know that last point speaks for itself. It's not the modern American way to get into a war that will take fewer than six years to lose, and the Chinese would be done with us in about 25 minutes.

No more than likely we would incinerate the world in five days. We still have almost 100 times the nuclear capability of China, but I'm guessing you know that.

worst part of this is the cause for this obesitiy is in a large part the result of USDA policies supporting corn syrup and other non cane sugars, and the fact that Food stamps are not restricted to healthy food. Restrict food stamp usage to healthy unprocessed foods, and that instanly changes the diet of 1/5 the population, and he could do it at the strike of a pen (but the food and industry lobbiest would scream bloody murder)

I agree with you 100%. The truth is, junk food is cheaper than healthy food. The cost of good food needs to come down. Then you might see some changes at the scales. By the way, have you ever seen an overweight migrant worker?

I eat healthy foods, lots of veggies, fruits, whole grains, no meat or dairy, and I spend about $100 dollars a week on food for one person.

How much do you think it would cost to feed a family of four, with young growing kids, and are you willing to see SNAP cover the increased costs. The current SNAP program gives $135 per person per month.

We have become a nation of porkers. Maybe its aliens from outer space fattening us up for the slaughter. : )

You are 100% right. They ought to go on a scale according to how much an individual weighs, this will depend on how much you get a month for food stamps. I bet a lot of users would lose weight FAST! This would be sort of paying people an incentive to lose some weight. Just a thought!

You are incredibly biased and ridiculous.

Would not work, the poorer the food is nutritionally the less it costs.

Now here, in the other hand, I'm with you. It's more than faintly absurd the way things have turned around in the last hundred or so years. It used to be that only rich people could afford to be fat, and girth was seen (particularly in men) as a sign of success and power. That's why all those capitalist robber barons in the late 1800s are depicted in political cartoons of the age as basically spherical and having at least six chins - it's the cartoonists' visual shorthand for how fantastically wealthy they were.

Nowadays, though, the food supply has altered to the point where only the fairly-well-off can afford to be thin (barring a lucky genetic draw, or working much harder for it than many people are prepared to do), and instead of editorial cartoons depicting fat robber barons, we get those clips on the news showing people on a street in Workaday America, camera adjusted so you can't see their heads, with captions along the lines of LOL CHECK OUT HOW FAT THE PLEBS ARE GETTING.

NOTE: Dying of malnutrition only incidentally involves weight loss, in much the same way that burning to death only incidentally involves abnormally high body temperature.

Solution - tax anyone who is obese (i.e. increase their health insurance or a federal surcharge) - people will be more compelled to lose weight if it impacts their income. I would also suggest that the same be done if people don't follow the USDA guidelines at home, schools, colleges, and even restaurants.

That's coming next. Just a matter of time.

A shortage of cannon fodder? This is the solution to war mongering!!! Eat up!!! Gimme some more cheeseburgers with plenty of fries!!!!

War time they'll take all the fat people they can get

At least the fatties have a good chance at being cops.
No size limit there.

Can't the fat ones run the drones and other robots?

Send in the drones...

Which is faster, someone running a mile in 5 minutes or an AK-47?

I wonder why you have 4 thumbs down.

But I thought guns don't kill only people?

If the Army can't fix that in Basic, they're doing it wrong.

Basic is for training military skills not losing weight, besides there are more issues than just weight if a person is obese. There are the issues of Diabetes, high cholesterol, high blood pressure and many other illnesses.

Oh, tosh, Basic has nothing to do with "military skills". It's for rewriting the recruits' mindset so that they'll function as desired in a military environment and can then go off and learn military skills. It should be a simple enough matter to adjust the program so that it ensure they'll fit into the uniform physically as well as psychologically. After all, military basic training is one of the few places left in our society where authority figures have almost unlimited latitude to abuse their lessers with impunity.

that chick is hot in the front!

Maybe the FDA should stop allowing so many chemicals and trash in food, like high corn fructose, which deadens ones ability to realize they have eaten enough already, GMO foods like what does that do to a body? Fast foods, pre-made dinners full of H.C.F. and sodium.
Injecting animals with growth hormones which affects the entire animal, then people eat the hormones.
Not to hard to figure out the government is just as equal in guilt as people who eat the stuff and then sit on the couch.

When I was in the service there were a number of overweight people in training at Ft. Leonard Wood...at first. They ended up in remedial PT-I won't say what everyone called it. We all got up at 4:30-5 am to do PT, but in the evening, after we had marched 12 miles out and back to whatever range we were going to, they had to do the extra...running around the barracks with steel plates, grass drills, sit-ups in the gravel....all the while a drill was screaming at them...they weren't allowed to quit. Most of them got pretty lean and mean.

Well, with Mrs. Obumble taking meat, potatoes and pizza away from Me the People while eating BBQ every day, and Me the People pushing back, no wonder we're so obsese (according to rich libruls)! Maybe if we had a Commander in Chief we'd be proud to serve, we'd hit the gym a little more and sign up!

This is a 10 on the id10t scale

Umm, today I would have never been able to enter the service. Fortunately I joined when the restrictions weren't designed for a 'Cookie Cutter' military. Thank God in WWII and Korea they weren't all that concerned with ones current weight either.
Most people are capable of making it through basic training and losing a lot of weight in the process. But with the mentality today there seems little room in the military mentality to realize that all people are not built alike.

Well when they shoot at you, a little fat can move very fast.

There were very few obese people in the 1940's and 50's. In fact the military had more of an issue with underweight people.

Maybe it's time to bring back the draft and whip our population of young people back into shape through mandatory military service.
Or the more liberal stance......spend billions of dollars on a study and some counseling, then ban junk food.

yeah! if it wasn't for those darn liberals caring so much about freedom we could force our people to do all sorts of great things!

Come on thats just plain wrong to even suggest outloud.
Didn't you see the movie Full Metal Jacket? Todays kids and young adults can't even deal with being told no.

Is he suggesting that we need a super race? Seems like someone else tried that in Europe a long time ago. Didn't work out, if I recall. It's probably all the antibiotics in meats we eat and meds that we take that upset our digestive system. Though we do need them from time to time, a constant bombardment isn't good. By the way, where did he get the money during the sequester. Guess there is plenty to indoctrinate a captive audience of four. Have to order the military to listen to his crap because no one else will.

Since Vilsack has repeatedly supported the AG industry's push for GMO food, he should not be surprised at the effects this diet is having. But it is making Monsanto and big farmers in Iowa rich!

Vilsack has repeatedly demonstrated a preference for large industrial farms and genetically modified crops;[21] as Iowa state governor, he originated the seed pre-emption bill in 2005, effectively blocking local communities from regulating where genetically engineered crops would be grown; additionally, Vilsack was the founder and former chair of the Governor's Biotechnology Partnership, and was named Governor of the Year by the Biotechnology Industry Organization, an industry lobbying group.[22]
You reap what you sow!

Another thing is in the cities the gangs control the streets not the police, so moms would rather have the kids playing video games than be outside playing ball like we did as kids, yet no one says a thing about the GANGS not the Mayor or the cops

Holy crap! we finally agree on something.

I think you can add this attitude to that as well, my kids are not going to have it as hard as I did, each generation and technology made it easier, my kid does not have to split the wood to keep warm, we buy it split already, there is also the teaching that everyone get a trophy, and you deserve it, not have to EARN it.

You think life is easier today? I'm guessing from our posts that we are either about the same age, or I am a little older, but for me, splitting wood, and camping with Dad out on Grand Lake was the easiest part of my life. AND I'm not complaining. I've had a wonderful life, and I'm only sorry that the children of today will probably not be able to experience some of the things which made my life great, like associating with folks who made money with their hands.