Vegetarian Military Recruits

The Physician’s Committee for Responsible Medicine (PCRM) has written an open letter to the US military, suggesting the military promote plant-based diets as a way for recruits to meet military weight requirements. The number of overweight or obese people has posed a problem for Army enlistment, with 5.7 million men and 16.5 million women of military age being too overweight to qualify. “It is not too late for the overweight young people showing up at your recruiting stations,” Nutritional Education Director Susan Levin wrote. “Instead of turning away a quarter of your potential recruits because they are too heavy, why not arm them with information on how to improve their health?”