Weight Requirements and Skinniness in the Military: Definitely Unhealthy and Out of Date-- From WWII

Added: 2026-05-19

[00:00:00]This is a very relevant question as we go back into the land of overly skinniness and GLPs. Yes, there are a lot of eating disorders in the military.

[00:00:10]This begins because the military uses a completely archaic height and weight chart to judge people's BMI and then kicks them out of their job if they are not exactly correct. And when I mean archaic, I mean it hasn't been updated [clears throat] since World War II. And Americans are on average a head taller than they used to be. Somebody my height, 5'5", a woman, I believe is only allowed to be 150 lb. That's about 10 lb heavier than me, which I could easily fluctuate to at any time. Twice a year, you have to get your height measured and your weight measured. And if you don't fit perfectly onto that chart, then comes the most, again, archaic way of measuring BMI with the most error, which is to strip down to your skivvies cuz colonels always want to inspect your underwear, and have a human being measure you around certain parts of your body. It is extremely humiliating for the people who have to go through it. Um and then again, your career can be ended, which leads to so many eating disorders, hugely prevalent amongst men in the United States military, and very, very, very unhealthy actions to try to lose weight twice a year. Um kind of like what wrestlers will do, for example. The crazy thing is it also affects those of us who were skinny the whole time. You know how they say in civilian society you can never be too rich or too skinny? In the military, it's you can never be too fast or too skinny. And I would be losing weight to the point it was so unhealthy, I would be at doctors, I would be on second rations, and I would still be getting compliments about being skinny.

[00:01:59]We have this photo, which I mean, I love because I have a photo of myself looking this good, but the secret is I was deployed. This was in my ninth month of deployment, and I was hugely underfed, really bad food, and just having a hard time eating and working around the clock.

[00:02:18]So, yeah, I had a six-pack because I was low-key starving a bit.

[00:02:25]And that's the army.

[00:02:27]Took me a long time. It's actually one of the things that my readers of my first memoir told me. They told me two things. Hey sis, do you know you're ADHD? And oh, by the way, trigger warnings for eating disorders. And that's when I realized I had had disordered eating for 20 years. I think most of us don't leave cults without disordered eating, either control or overeating. Can happen either way. And the military is certainly one of those cults. As we know, and as I have written about in my new book, The Culting of America, cults always want you skinny. It's one of the ways that they try to control you. And again, we are seeing this at an alarming pace in America again. Turns out, in fact, that every time women stand up and demand more rights, culture and fashion start pushing skinniness. You got to fight it.

[00:03:22]I'm Daniella, a scholar of cults, extreme groups, and extremely bad leadership. You can get signed copies of both my books attached here, or listen to me read it to you anywhere you get your audiobooks.