Obese Children a National Security Threat?

@Thomas,

I already said that. So why are you going on about it? I said children and it was childhood. I was wrong. It still does not change the fact that saying it's a national security threat is over the top TO ME.

No wonder I hate politics.

2 Replies

I am not upset with anyone personally, please understand that. But, I have a right to my opinion and that is all it is. I think it was over the top. You don't think it was over the top. I don't get why this can't be discussed without someone having to be right or wrong.

I agree something needs to be done about childhood obesity, obesity of any kind for that matter because it is a danger to one's health. Why is it such a big deal that it is my opinion the statement was over the top?

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@Arella Mae,

Arella Mae wrote:

I already said that. So why are you going on about it? I said children and it was childhood.

No. You said it was children, you said it should have been obesity, and it was obesity.

Arella Mae wrote:

It still does not change the fact that saying it's a national security threat is over the top TO ME.

That's fine! Neither I, nor Sozobe, nor anybody else in this thead has a problem with this opinion. In fact, most of us agree with it.

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@Thomas,

At first, yes, I said it was children and it was pointed out to me that it was childhood. I was wrong and then stated I still thought the statement was over the top. I thought that is what this was about - the national security statement - not my stating something incorrectly.

And read what you quoted me saying again. It says I SAID it was children BUT it WAS childhood, meaning I was incorrect.

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@Arella Mae,

Well, I'm glad we cleared that up.

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@Thomas,

me too!

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@Arella Mae,

Arella Mae wrote:

I already said that. So why are you going on about it? I said children and it was childhood. I was wrong. It still does not change the fact that saying it's a national security threat is over the top TO ME.

No wonder I hate politics.

Don't hate the game, hate the players.

You corrected your original error which was pointed out to you with great force.

You've made clear your opinion, with which I agree btw.

Although it happens all the time here on A2K, this time no one is picking on you.

Time to let it go.

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@Arella Mae,

Quote:

I agree something needs to be done about childhood obesity, obesity of any kind for that matter because it is a danger to one's health. Why is it such a big deal that it is my opinion the statement was over the top?

I guess for me it was because one interpretation was MUCH over the top than the other was. Much more.

Saying that "obese Children are a national security threat," well. That's ridiculous on several levels. It just sounds bad to say it out loud, I just tried it. It names a child as a threat which just doesn't sound good.

Saying that "Childhood Obesity is a national security threat" is hyperbolic but not quite as ridiculous. It names a condition as the guilty party. Externalizes the problem away from a child and onto the factors that lead to obesity, which is really what Obama's thing was all about.

It could have been more artfully said, sure.

Cycloptichorn

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@Cycloptichorn,

And that has been my point all along. It could have been said better. I don't feel anyone is picking on me, please don't think that.

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@Cycloptichorn,

Cycloptichorn wrote:

Saying that "obese Children are a national security threat," well. That's ridiculous on several levels. It just sounds bad to say it out loud, I just tried it. It names a child as a threat which just doesn't sound good.

Saying that "Childhood Obesity is a national security threat" is hyperbolic but not quite as ridiculous. It names a condition as the guilty party. Externalizes the problem away from a child and onto the factors that lead to obesity, which is really what Obama's thing was all about.

Yes, but ultimately it's the same problem. After all, the military isn't rejecting a condition, it's rejecting people -- enormous people. There's really no difference, then, between saying "childhood obesity is a threat to our national security" and saying "fat children are a threat to our national security," except for the PR implications of the latter. It's like saying "rampant zombie-ism is a threat to our national security" while denying that zombies are a threat.

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I still find the basic premise ludicrously flawed. When i referred earlier to a Wikipedia article and made remarks based on the numbers they presented, i was referring to the numbers of men and women fit for military service, not just the available pool within the recruiting age limits. To maintain current manpower, there is a pool of nearly 120,000,000 (2008 estimates) people who are fit for military service. This whole truck load of BS appears to me to be military types crying because their recruiting programs are failing. They're failing because people don't like to get shot at.

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@Setanta,

Oh, I dunno. From Soz' post on the first page:

Quote:

Being overweight or obese turns out to be the leading medical reason why applicants fail to qualify for military service.

We're talking about reasons why people who WANT to join, can't qualify. Not why people aren't trying to join in general (which I agree with you on).

Cycloptichorn

1 Reply

OK, Cyclo, now you're missing my point. The figure of 120,000,000 is the pool of fit men and women available, by a 2008 estimate, from the article i linked. If the recruiters are finding that people who want to enlist are not fit, and that they are therefore not meeting the quotas their superiors in the Pentagon have set, obesity is not the problem--their ability to attract people from the available pool is the problem. One hundred twenty million fit people to maintain an armed force of less than one an half million means that you could replace the entire armed force simply by recruiting one and one quarter per cent of the available pool of people who are by Defense Department standards, fit to serve. To maintain a force of one and one half million which alreay exists, you'd need even fewer recruits.

So what is any particular number of potential recruits prove not to be fit? That just means that the military's recruitment efforts have failed to attract enough people to separate the wheat from the chaff. It's incredibly stupid to suggest that our national security is threatened by obsesity when we have 80 times as many people fit to serve as would be required to actually double our armed force.

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@Setanta,

I accept the merit of your argument.

Cycloptichorn

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Thanks, Boss. In none of this do i deny that childhood obesity is a problem--i just don't buy that it's a national defense problem.

If you don't eat your green vegetables and you eat red meat, however, the terrorists will have won.

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@joefromchicago,

This is only the 2nd time in US history that anything unrelated to military affairs is elevated to "National Security Threat".

The first time was in 2000, when Samuel Berger (Clinton's National Security adviser, later famous for decamping with classified documents stuffed into his socks) tried to justify his boss's bid for support by the homosexual community and got (politely) laughed at even at PBS.
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/health/jan-june00/aids_threat_5-2.html

In this second effort 10 years later Mrs Obama's proteges are the potential recruits being turned down for being too fat. Regulation maximum body fat is 27% in the US armed forces - a very, very ample allowance since athletes never exceed a third of that.

The "1 in 4" number used by Mrs Obama becomes "1 in 2" if only the pool of black and hispanic potential recruits is considered. Of them, how many would meet all other requirements (min. education, no criminal convictions, etc) if only they lost the weight? Hardly any.

All this "obesity and national security" nonsense is so much smoke-and-mirrors and deserves to follow its predecessor "threat", AIDS, to a well-deserved oblivion - especially if more billions are to be thrown at it than this idiotic bill has already wasted.

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@Setanta,

Setanta wrote:

..... military types crying because their recruiting programs are failing. They're failing because people don't like to get shot at.

People will take their chances with getting shot at if they think it's for a worthwhile cause.

Assange's website, Saddam's WMDs, South Waziristan, AIDS, and fatties, just don't make the cut.

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@Cycloptichorn,

Cycloptichorn wrote:

We're talking about reasons why people who WANT to join, can't qualify. Not why people aren't trying to join in general (which I agree with you on).

But if the military wanted to, it could take these people in and improve their fitness. The military chooses not to take the time and expense to train them and I think that is a rational decision, but to say that the lack of these people in uniform is a threat to national security is silly. If the safety of the nation was at risk, we'd have remedial bootcamp.

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@engineer,

engineer wrote:

Cycloptichorn wrote:

We're talking about reasons why people who WANT to join, can't qualify. Not why people aren't trying to join in general (which I agree with you on).

But if the military wanted to, it could take these people in and improve their fitness.

That costs more money and time. A lot of it. And that reduces the efficiency of the force as a whole.

Quote:

The military chooses not to take the time and expense to train them and I think that is a rational decision, but to say that the lack of these people in uniform is a threat to national security is silly. If the safety of the nation was at risk, we'd have remedial bootcamp.

I don't disagree that the statement was hyperbolic. But I think we can look at graphs of childhood obesity, and see that if something isn't done to halt the rise of incidence, we will have an increasingly difficult time getting recruits in shape.

I also wonder about the effectiveness of attacking the problem as an adult. Surely it is far less effective to 'shape up' a fat guy, than it is to have recruits who were in shape before they came in? Not in terms of time or money it takes, but in the overall outcome. You can't just turn fat dudes into athletes in a few months.

Cycloptichorn

1 Reply

@Cycloptichorn,

Absolutely true. I think addressing childhood obesity is a good thing and I don't think the military should go out of its way to train up those too heavy to meet its standards, but if it really was a matter of national security, I think they would. It's all just hyperbole, but I am with those who think that we should save "threats to national security" for things like zombie invasions.

1 Reply

Obese Children a National Security Threat?

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