Women make up about 16% of the Army, the service said.Īrmy Sgt. Failing weight requirements can impact a soldier’s career path or lead to discharges. In reverse, about 1% of men and about 5% of women were deemed overweight by the tape test when they should not have been. Tape testing was passing about 35% men who should have failed and about 20% of women. However, almost all inaccuracies were in the soldier’s favor, according to the study, which collected data on 2,690 soldiers beginning in late 2021. Soldiers told Grinston that their measurements weren’t always taken at the proper points of their body, he said. The current tape-test method, which the study found to be right about 65% of the time, includes taking measurements at a man’s abdomen and neck and a woman’s waist, hips and neck, and then calculating a specific equation. The last Army study on the subject was 23 years ago, he said. Grinston requested the Army Research Institute of Environmental Medicine conduct the study on body composition after hearing concerns from soldiers about the accuracy of the Army’s method for measuring body fat for overweight soldiers. Meant to simulate the physicality of combat, the six events of the test are a deadlift, standing power throw, hand-release pushups, the sprint-drag-carry, a plank and a two-mile run. The test was first introduced in 2019 but implementation was delayed for years because of research that found women and members of the Guard and Reserve were unfairly assessed. Of those, 23% met the new standard for exemption. Since the Army implemented its new fitness test in October, 240,377 active-duty soldiers have passing scores on file, according to the service. The study landed on a 540 because a soldier’s body fat, performance and injury-risk aligned for a fit healthy soldier at that score, said Holly McClung, one of lead researchers for the Army Body Composition Study. The exemption is only valid for up to eight months for active-duty soldiers and 14 months in the National Guard and Reserve.Ī passing score on the fitness test is 360 and a perfect score is 600. Under the new policy, soldiers who earn a 540 or higher on the Army Combat Fitness Test, with a minimum of 80 points in each of the six events, will not have to do a body fat test if they fail the weight requirements. A soldier receives a bioelectrical impedance analysis scan at Fort Bragg, N.C., in October 2021.
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