So do we turn away cadets with a BMI over 30?
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Interesting point and not one I’d considered. I suppose they should be allowed in where they can be coached and developed out of the bad habits that made them obese. Could be the best thing to happen to them.
So do we turn away cadets with a BMI over 30?
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Interesting point and not one I’d considered. I suppose they should be allowed in where they can be coached and developed out of the bad habits that made them obese. Could be the best thing to happen to them.[/quote]
And we all have the time to devote to a single cadet in the pursuit of something which bears zero resemblance the the ACO?
So do we turn away cadets with a BMI over 30?
[/quote]
Interesting point and not one I’d considered. I suppose they should be allowed in where they can be coached and developed out of the bad habits that made them obese. Could be the best thing to happen to them.[/quote]
And we all have the time to devote to a single cadet in the pursuit of something which bears zero resemblance the the ACO?[/quote]
SVS I have made several comments on this in posts, (that you have missed) as it’s the “logical progression”, given that cadets outnumber staff 3:1 or so and therefore have a greater presence. I see more cadets straining uniforms than I do staff.
But as ON alludes where do we find the time and like in everything else we do on a normal parade night WRT instruction (as this along with counselling is what is needed), so few are properly trained. Also given the sensitivity around this and the underlying things that can contribute, HQAC can’t go down the “you’re a fat git lose some weight or else” with cadets as they seem to be attempting with adult staff. The mental health and low confidence/self-esteem side of excessive weight, could be quite easily be converted to anorexic/under eating disorders, which are also linked to low confidence/self-esteem and just as damaging. I’ve worked with men and women who won’t eat normally and exercise excessivley because of the fear of putting on weight. Oh yes and then there are genetics and the body’s natural dispostion to fully metabolise what you put in.
I personally think that the attitudes displayed by some here are, unless they wish to come out of the closet, not based on a first or even second/third/fourth hand knowledge of dealing with weight gain, as the solutions suggested are at best infantile.
I think we should keep the topic to CFAV fitness. Cadet fitness is a whole other ball game, and one that needs professional training/input. I think we could run the risk of derailing another thread and looking a bit silly.
I think that this tread stared to look silly several pages ago, with the egos having a weeing contest again…
It’ an emotive subect clearly, but as you say emotions shouldn’t come into play here.
Being a researcher/scientist has to be the easiest job ever, all you have to do is contradict whatever was decided to be the truth yesterday, and everyone suddenly believes you 'coz you’re the expert! Best get myself down to mcdonalds and eat till someone decides its bad for me again then. :evil:
What about those not claiming benefit?
There seems to be an erroneous assumption that people who fit this criteria are claiming benefits. I bet if they asked a random sample of those who fit the body image, not many would be claiming benefits as described.
I was watching the Hairy Bikers programme where they were losing weight and the shorter one said that his dad had a manual job and cycled to and from work and never had a waist more than 36(?). Now here’s a truth in this whole argument. Life since the last quarter of the 20th Century has become increasingly sedentary and the work in this country has moved away from an industrial/manufacturing base to a service basis. Also in this time the distance people travel is greater, public transport has got worse, hence the reliance on cars.
And arguably therefore GHE2, reasons why people should undertake exercise separately as they no longer get the physical conditioning through their jobs?
It’s the separately aspect that you are never going to enforce, which is why they are considering the dock benefits approach.
I don’t think you can blame people for something that comes about as a result societal change, maybe we are adopting our normal state and because we used to have more physically active lives and less access to ready made food we always metabolised what we ate. But I know looking at photos of my family from 2/3 generations ago, that wasn’t always the case. My family had heavy/manual/labour intensive jobs and not many were ‘racing snakes’.
Societal change has resulted in the greater availability 24/7 of take-away food and general shopping. You can buy practically any food whenever you want get it all delivered to your door and it is ridiculously cheap, even eating out is now far cheaper relatively than it ever was. How many nip into CostaBuck or McKentuckyKing or high street bakery or other such emporium for a drink and a feed between meals? If legislators actually wanted to make a difference they’d ban 24/7 opening/shopping, heavily tax take away food, make food deliveries too expensive and remove a lot of technology from the workplace that makes the jobs sedentary. But this is difficult so they go down the cut benefits route, which as I say only works if people are on benefits.
That’s because the police are a now a running joke. The fitness testing for the public services is an absolute shocking, embarrassing, horrendous joke.
Not to mention some of the military fitness testing. (I thought women wanted equality? Ah yes but on their own terms, i forgot 5.56 travels slower because you have a vagina)
All this discrimination, and hurt feelings utter crap. And to get round the “discrimination” instead of raising the female standards, they just drag down the blokes. It’s an embarrassment.
Should it be encouraged to staff? Yes. Compulsory? No, how can you enforce it?
It should be a matter of personal pride.
I am stood by to jump on anyone that brings up any of this “health at every size” crap. Or discrimination because obesity is a “disability”. Or any thyroid nonsense.
No, no, & no again.
It is impossible to compare apples against orange, big or small, RAF or CFAV.
That also ignores the floodgates that would open for CFAVs leaving the organisation.
Yes, in general society it would be better for the world to be healthie****, for our NHS to be able to reduce their expenditure on obesity-related treatments / conditions / equipment (bariatric ambulances, etc), & for children not to be taken into care / put on risk register as their parents are feeding them like geese for foie gras!. Now, when it comes to taking mandatory / legislated action against members of the population for being obese, such as reduction in tax credits, benefits, surcharge for health care, then there might be the faintest chance of some kind of health push for volunteers. Oh, that won’t happen in the next 50 yrs, despite the fact that the UK statistics are not “healthy.”
*** = needs an actuary type of mind to play with the figures, die earlier = less health care costs to the state / less pension costs to pay out… A study some while ago suggested that if smoking in UK was banned completely, tax revenues would drop, but gradually NHS costs would decrease due to health improvements, more or less cost-neutral. However, the extra life expectancy would negate this, as pension costs would increase. Overall, it would end up costing more!
So what your saying if everybody smoked the country would be better off. Time for a panatela
Those of a certain age may remember Sir Humphrey arguing that smoking was an admirable, altruistic vocation - smokers pay loads of tax and then die before they can collect their pensions…
I think this was aimed at adult staff not the cadets.
Personally I think uniformed staff should do a fitness test.
It promotes a healthy lifestyle and encourages a healthy lifestyle to cadets. Plus it encourages those who want to loose a little weight to do so.
Well it’s not like we are short of uniformed staff is it? 
[quote=“Scrounger, post:159, topic:237, full:true”]
Personally I think uniformed staff should do a fitness test.
It promotes a healthy lifestyle and encourages a healthy lifestyle to cadets. Plus it encourages those who want to loose a little weight to do so.[/quote]
I don’t quite know how passing a fitness test would make me a better person?
Sorry to potentially burst your bubble but we are not the influencing factors in cadets’ lives you might like to think, when they only see us for a couple of hours a week. The fact they see staff running around or similar making idiots of themselves, would not encourage them to do it. I wouldn’t do it and as daws intimates many adults would see it as a negative and just more interference from HQAC and find better things to do. Teachers and parents are the greater influencing factors. You see parental influences in the cadets, those cadets who get involved in things do so largely as a result of parental encouragement and support as the parents value we offer and those that don’t largely because of parental disinterest,
When I look around at people I know, I am far more active than many of the ‘healthier’ looking ones. I walk around the village and local area (I like the seasonal changes … except pollen!) and swim once or twice a week (c.600m a time) and I still don’t resemble a racing snake, unless it’s swallowed a bull elephant.