I don't think this has to do with gender. The military needs to reform its regs for both men and women so that it no longer relies on the outdated height/weight formula and turns to a more accurate muscle index.
Women have a more difficult time meeting the weight requirements because the average woman has 30% fat. How much that has to do with biology and how much that has to do with society aside, in terms of sheer weight women are going to have a tough time meeting the regs. One obvious setback against the requirements a woman will have is her genetic predisposition to breast size. My sister just graduated from boot camp. She's had DD's all her life, and even when she exercised like crazy, even in the gruel of boot camp, the smallest her breasts ever got were C's.
Some military personnel do develop eating disorders in relation to the regs. However, there's a difference between a disorder -- a compulsion to starve/vomit/etc. over and over -- and a circumstancial occurance. I've known a lot of military people, and most of them took laxatives or starved themselves to get into the army. I'm not saying that's a good thing, I think it's terrible, but it's not a psychological/physiological compulsion.
PT scores do have to do with promotion, but that's more about physical fitness than weight itself, imo.
Does the fact that women are about one-and-a-half to twice as likely to use methods like purging, laxatives, sweating out water weight, etc have anything to do with gender?
In the culture I grew up in, occasional indulgence in the types of activities associated with eating disorders was socially acceptable for girls. My sister was not bullimic (she didn't have the DSM criteria in terms of degree) but she did purge on a semi-regular basis in late middle school and early high school; many of her friends did too. It seemed to be "normal" for girls to have episodic use of what I would consider extreme behaviors, whereas it wasn't for boys outside of the wrestling team.
Women have a more difficult time meeting the weight requirements because the average woman has 30% fat. How much that has to do with biology and how much that has to do with society aside, in terms of sheer weight women are going to have a tough time meeting the regs. One obvious setback against the requirements a woman will have is her genetic predisposition to breast size. My sister just graduated from boot camp. She's had DD's all her life, and even when she exercised like crazy, even in the gruel of boot camp, the smallest her breasts ever got were C's.
Some military personnel do develop eating disorders in relation to the regs. However, there's a difference between a disorder -- a compulsion to starve/vomit/etc. over and over -- and a circumstancial occurance. I've known a lot of military people, and most of them took laxatives or starved themselves to get into the army. I'm not saying that's a good thing, I think it's terrible, but it's not a psychological/physiological compulsion.
PT scores do have to do with promotion, but that's more about physical fitness than weight itself, imo.
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In the culture I grew up in, occasional indulgence in the types of activities associated with eating disorders was socially acceptable for girls. My sister was not bullimic (she didn't have the DSM criteria in terms of degree) but she did purge on a semi-regular basis in late middle school and early high school; many of her friends did too. It seemed to be "normal" for girls to have episodic use of what I would consider extreme behaviors, whereas it wasn't for boys outside of the wrestling team.
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