The U.S. Armed Forces increasingly struggle to meet their recruiting targets for the nation’s volunteer military, an issue in part attributable to the ever shrinking pool of eligible recruits. A colossal 77% of Americans aged 17-24 are unfit for military service, the Pentagon has concluded, a figure which has risen 6% since 2017.

The DOD report, which was cited in a Feb. 16 congressional hearing, according to the Epoch Times, concluded that obesity was a driving factor in the eligibility decline. Obesity rates have increased consistently for decades and 42.9% of the U.S. adult population qualify as obese, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. In 1999, that figure was more than 10 points lower.

[To be fair, is that change an outright increase in obesity, or an artifact of a changing definition of “obese”? I honestly don’t know, but it’s a fair question to ask. Either way, of course, this is a bad situation, although the military has ways to get its recruits into shape — and its draftees, if it comes to that. — Ed]