U.S. military nutrition officials are hoping to reduce injury rates in Army and Air Force basic training with a calcium-rich snack bar designed to increase bone density among recruits.
The Defense Department's Combat Feeding Program began issuing the Performance Readiness Bar this year to trainees in Army Basic Combat Training and Air Force Basic Military Training, according to Jeremy Whitsitt, deputy director of the Combat Feeding Program.
"I guess what the services had noticed over the past 10 to 12 years is that, due to the nature of the recruits, they were getting kind a more sedentary individual as opposed to what they have experienced in the past," Whitsitt said.
"They noticed a dramatic increase in stress fractures that would cause either the recruits to get recycled, where they heal and basically start over from the beginning, or they get hurt so severely that ... they are just out of the military," he said.
The Army medical community attempted to combat the issue "using a mixture of calcium and vitamin D, knowing clinically the calcium and vitamin D increases bone density ... so they initially tried to administer it through pill form," Whitsitt said.
The approach was not effective because only about 60 percent of the soldiers in the test took the pills as instructed, he said.
>obvious solution: change your training because if an abundance of broken bones is such a problem you need to start providing recruits with extra nutrients as a precaution it's obviously not the people but the exercise >their solution: gibs mor munees
Wyatt Brooks
if the exercise was fine before then it's not the exercise, it's the people
I never realized how deficient I was in calcium until I fractured my tibia when my motorcycle landed on it during a tip over
Year and a half later I'm finally taking proper supplements and eating right
Jeremiah Cooper
I garuntee the main cause for these fractures is the increase in female recruits
Oliver Taylor
You failed to read between the lines. The real issue is the average bone density of women is significantly lower than men. Look into the Osteoporosis rates in all age groups. Women average 5x higher percentages across the board. The training hasn't changed into something more likely to break bones, the recruits have.
Don't these women know the importance of good nutrition to both bone and boobie growth?
Aaron Lopez
>stress fractures So shin splints and foot problems? Maybe don't make us fucking run on concrete for 1 hour, march for 2 hours, and stand for 4 hours every day.
Jordan Smith
The Navy had the same problem, their solution was serving breakfast cereal with every meal at RTC. (That was actually recently amended, now they only get cereal for breakfast)
Julian Cruz
>everyone citing it's because of women No, it's been briefed directly from TRADOC (Army) that this increase was noticed in Infantry OSUT prior to women being allowed in. Just COD kids wanting to be cool, but their parents failed them all their lives.
Ryan Allen
This couple with poor running technique is the cause of stress fractures and shin splints.
They should also remove skim milk from the dfacs. Its milk with no taste or nutrients.
Elijah Scott
but who can be arsed to fix their diet so they can handle a few grams of saturated fat in the most nutritious substance on Earth?
I swear I'm not a rep for the Dairy Farmers of America.
Levi Butler
not trying to meme here, but bear in mind when they whole "onions is a superfood" thing started and all the rediculous vegan shit with it
there are kids turning 18 in the last 5 years who have literally been raised on garbage vegetarian hipster diets thanks to their ignorant parent. are they the ones joining the military? probably not, but i know at least 5 vegetarian/pescatarian/[other alternative hippy shit to eating real food] infantryman and scouts from my soon to be over time in the army as both MOS's. not enough value is placed on the diets of children, and obviously it's not regulated. it's up to the parents to decide if their kids grow up with healthy bodies or not.
it's just another mistake that humans make, which nobody suffers from til 20 years later. like how in 20 years we'll learn how stuff we do every day today was horribly unhealthy. childhood and puberty is a small window that can affect the rest of your life, if you take it for granted or abuse your body in that window you arent just going to magically recover from it in adulthood. the time to make the most of growing your body is over, you wasted it.
t. armchair dietician who chugged milk every day as a kid and through puberty and never broke a bone in my life despite some brutal punches to the nose, having my toes run over by a HMMWV that PV2 Fuckshit didnt put in parking brake on a light slope at NTC, and infinite 18-20mile rucks with no shin splints
>Whole ass milk or lactose free but not skim stuff >Proper running form
I can only imagine a DS chewing someones ass for being a heelstriker
Liam Williams
Bilateral stress fractures during training here. The DFACS is shit and they literally gave all the female recruits a multivitamin, and actively told the dudes we couldn't have one. I was in med hold with an airborne linguist recruit, an loadmaster recruit, an air traffic controller recruit, and some dude who had an electronics job. All 90+ ASVABs, all washed because of stress fractures. They ran out of boots in my size so I was given a size up. It was shitty.
James Ward
would insoles help? (agree with you on the concrete roads thing once you get ouf of basic)
Brody Allen
Shitty seems like an understatement. Those doctors and equipment guys deserve neckties.
Xavier Sanders
>Stress Fractures Better you break there than you get out on some cheap medical chapter later and call yourself a veteran. You didnt become the villain.
Daniel Johnson
The army is probably only pretending to care about this. They told me to fuck off when I got hurt. Also if your breaking your shit as a pog you might want to kill yourself. Pog units don't even march in boots half the time and they do thier "rucks" with backpacks.
Carson Watson
Ceremite powder slurries when?
Mason Lee
Yeah its all those kids raised on Vegetarian diets, definetly not the staple American diet of fast food, processed corn products, and nutritionally vacuous sweets their whole life.
Blake Cox
yeah its the calciums fault not your poor life decision to ride a motorcycle. probably drunk.
