It's become an empire that is increasing stress levels on large numbers of people
Sorry, I just don't see what is stressful about not being clinically obese or so unfit you can't run 20m shuttles without keeling over? And I say that as somebody who isn't particularly good at sport and doesn't take great delight in spending hours in a gym to show off, but someone who does take pride in being reasonably fit and who believes that as an armed force, we should be a bit fitter than your average overweight civvie.
At the end of the day, I guess it's a mentality thing; but if we suddenly had a box on the OJAR / SJAR that you had to tick to say you were in date fit test and that was a qualifier for being read by the Board, a lot more people would suddenly take an interest in their health and careers.
Edited to add - the difference between those fit & unfit types does remind me of that old joke about 2 guys in a wood ambushed by a bear. The first guy stops to put his trainers on and the second says you aren't going to out run it, to which the first replies I know, but I only have to out run you. Swap woods for being on ops and swap the bear for the enemy - now going on ops with fatties suddenly seems attractive on some levels
