Thursday, March 06, 2008

The Army of Schultz...

...travels on its stomach:
A [German] parliamentary report sent to the Defense Ministry says the nation's soldiers are more overweight than average civilians, a spokesman said.

"Soldiers are too fat, don't do enough sports, and don't pay attention to what they eat," wrote Reinhold Robbe, the parliamentary commissioner for the military.

His report, issued Tuesday, drew on a study conducted by sports physicians at the University of Cologne showing that 40 percent of all soldiers between the ages of 18 and 29 are overweight, compared with 35 percent of German civilians the same age.

Robbe said that did not mean that the country's soldiers are too unfit to be deployed effectively. But he argued it would be an "enormous advantage" on the battlefield if they were in better shape.

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