Army rolls out rules on waist-to-height body standards

The Army rolled out new body composition standards Tuesday with requirements that mostly match existing Pentagon directives that a soldier’s waist measurement can be only slightly wider than half of their height.

The new standards, officials said in a release, take effect immediately and require soldiers to maintain a waist-to-height ratio less than 0.55. Soldiers will not be separated for failing to meet the standards during an initial 180-day assessment as officials review the results of the new rules.

“We are adopting new metrics to ensure our soldiers are healthy and physically fit to fight and win,” said Sgt. Maj. Monsanto, Deputy Chief of Staff, G-1, Directorate of Prevention, Resilience, Readiness.

The Marine Corps announced in February that its required waist-to-height ratio would be slightly skinnier than the Pentagon’s requirements, at 0.52. Navy officials confirmed sailors use the 0.55 standard, while the Air Force and Space Force adopted the 0.55 standard in 2023.

In January, the Defense Department directed all military services to start using waist-to-height ratio as a primary “health assessment tool,” ditching height and weight tables, circumference-based tape test, and supplemental body fat assessments. The simpler measurement divides the measurement of a service member’s waist circumference by their height.

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As part of the new approach, soldiers will be tested twice per calendar year to see if they meet the waist-to-height standards, the news release says. Soldiers who do not meet standards will take a follow-up test from another team on the same day.

If they fail again, they will be flagged as overweight and placed in the Army Body Composition program, the news release says. Soldiers in the program are monitored as they diet and exercise to meet the service’s body fat standards.

Previously, the military services used tables that set maximum weight for a soldier’s height, but those standards led many troops to complain that heavily muscled soldiers like weightlifters were being flagged as overweight for muscle mass rather than body fat.

Following the Pentagon’s direction to switch to the waist-to–height ratio, the Marine Corps announced in February that it would mandate that Marines have a waist-to-height ratio of 0.52 or less — a standard that means Marines will have to keep their waistlines between 2 and 3 inches skinnier than the Defense Department standard.

A Marine Corps spokesman told Task & Purpose at the time that the 0.52 waist-to-height ratio “represents a balance between health and performance.”

“From a health perspective, it serves as an initial screening to identify Marines for further evaluation before they reach higher health risk categories,” Maj. Hector Infante, a spokesman for Training and Education Command, said in February. “From a performance perspective, studies show that a high percentage of Marines below this threshold achieve first-class fitness scores.”