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Study: 77% of young Americans too fat, mentally ill, on drugs to join military

americanmilitarynews.com

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Re: Study: 77% of young Americans too fat, mentally ill, on drugs to join military

#21
Not a big difference, but I note that this is without a waiver. There is a process for getting a waiver for each branch[1]. There aren't a ton of waivers issued - only between 50,000 and 80,000 [2]. But the DoD is reviewing what can be removed as disqualifying (at least 38 disqualifying conditions) and multiple reports have been issued signaling out ADHD and marijuana as potential criteria to eliminate[3].

Personally I think it should come down to the role and risk. There's plenty of jobs where you're not seeing combat or dealing with inherently risky or critical tasks, and thus shouldn't be held to the same standard as those doing critical tasks. Just as one obvious example, somebody with a desk job doesn't need legs.

[1] https://www.operationmilitarykids.org/military-medical-waive... [2] https://serialpodcast.org/maps/number-of-waivers-given-to-us... [3] https://www.rand.org/blog/rand-review/2021/10/army-enlistmen...

Re: Study: 77% of young Americans too fat, mentally ill, on drugs to join military

#22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Marines slimmed my brother down but gave him a variety of mental health issues. I preferred him overweight, happy, and more functional. These are self inflicted wounds, high level. They don’t qualify because of the system we’ve built. Want healthy candidates for soldiers? Optimize for affordable nutrition and universal healthcare/mental health access [1] [2] [3] [4]. Don’t? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ Rampant obesity rates and dru…

Everyone has their own experiences but I will say that joining the Marines was the best thing that ever happened to me and I would openly recommend it to any young man.

Quite literally survivorship bias. Anecdotes aside, the statistics are damning.

https://stopsoldiersuicide.org/vet-stats

> Over 40,000 veterans are homeless on any given night

> Veterans are at 57% higher risk of suicide than those who haven't served.

> "Depending on branch, up to 31% of service members develop PTSD after returning from combat." ; "The rate of suicide for veterans in the LGBTQ+ community is up to 7x higher than for non-LGBTQ+ veterans." ; "More than 40% of female veterans report experiencing military sexual harassment or military sexual trauma."

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/06/22/us/911-suicide-rate-veter...

> "Suicides among post-9/11 veterans are four times as high as combat deaths, a new study finds."

> Since 2001, more than 114,000 veterans have died by suicide (first citation link indicates this is now 125k+)

You would recommend something that leads to these outcomes? To young adults?

Re: Study: 77% of young Americans too fat, mentally ill, on drugs to join military

#23
post #8

1. "Drug use" probably includes soft drugs like cannabis. 2. Basically any diagnosis of a mental health condition, like ADHD, will block military service. This is true even if symptoms are well managed without medication. The rise of diagnosis of these conditions combined with digital records means a lot of people are prohibited to join due to mental health that would have been overlooked in previous decades. 3. This…

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That YouTube video specifically appears to have been raided by 4chan so I would be careful drawing conclusions from the comments.

Re: Study: 77% of young Americans too fat, mentally ill, on drugs to join military

#24
post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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How can you gauge sentiment of a broad group from a self-selecting sample?

All the ones commenting on youtube are the drug using overweight people you mean? The ones that actually wanted to serve “the country” already enlisted.

Re: Study: 77% of young Americans too fat, mentally ill, on drugs to join military

#25
And then you have those with higher education and critical thinking capabilities who wouldn't ever join the military...

That aside, these stats are not surprising. Anyone from outside the US knows just how bad the education system is within. With red states outright banning books and knowledge, that number may just continue to climb.

Re: Study: 77% of young Americans too fat, mentally ill, on drugs to join military

#26
post #8

1. "Drug use" probably includes soft drugs like cannabis. 2. Basically any diagnosis of a mental health condition, like ADHD, will block military service. This is true even if symptoms are well managed without medication. The rise of diagnosis of these conditions combined with digital records means a lot of people are prohibited to join due to mental health that would have been overlooked in previous decades. 3. This…

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Re: Study: 77% of young Americans too fat, mentally ill, on drugs to join military

#27
post #8

1. "Drug use" probably includes soft drugs like cannabis. 2. Basically any diagnosis of a mental health condition, like ADHD, will block military service. This is true even if symptoms are well managed without medication. The rise of diagnosis of these conditions combined with digital records means a lot of people are prohibited to join due to mental health that would have been overlooked in previous decades. 3. This…

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This reminds me of when I turned 18. I was pissed. Signing up for selective service while the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq were going strong. I was worried there could be a draft and I'd end up in jail. Recruiters would call my house and I'd bitch them out about how I wasn't going to go invade another country and murder civilians. Just typing this out really reminds me how much I despise our military. The US is a shithole country

Re: Study: 77% of young Americans too fat, mentally ill, on drugs to join military

#28
post #8

1. "Drug use" probably includes soft drugs like cannabis. 2. Basically any diagnosis of a mental health condition, like ADHD, will block military service. This is true even if symptoms are well managed without medication. The rise of diagnosis of these conditions combined with digital records means a lot of people are prohibited to join due to mental health that would have been overlooked in previous decades. 3. This…

Regarding #1, you can get a waiver for past cannabis use if you weren't a habitual user (by self admission) and never faced any legal action (distribution, possession, etc) in regards to cannabis. If you have ever distributed any drug (even so far as splitting the cost of drugs with a roommate) you cannot enlist. The enlistment screeners are surprisingly effective at getting people to admit things they did over a decade ago.

If you admit to ever using LSD or psychedelics, even one time, you will be automatically disqualified from serving in the military or law enforcement (go figure).

Re: Study: 77% of young Americans too fat, mentally ill, on drugs to join military

#29
post #8

1. "Drug use" probably includes soft drugs like cannabis. 2. Basically any diagnosis of a mental health condition, like ADHD, will block military service. This is true even if symptoms are well managed without medication. The rise of diagnosis of these conditions combined with digital records means a lot of people are prohibited to join due to mental health that would have been overlooked in previous decades. 3. This…

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> Everyone needs to take a look at the comments on the latest recruitment ad on YouTube to gauge the sentiment of young American men towards the government and military:

> https://youtube.com/watch?v=Lwx-2R9swDg

> It really is a sight to behold. You need to see it. An endless stream of condemnation.

Looks like a bunch of antisemites and racists found the video and hit it with their comments at once. The further down the page you get, the more concentrated it becomes, presumably because the more mask-off stuff is less ambiguous and appeals to a narrower audience. But anyhow, it goes from tongue-in-cheek jokes to SJWs to eventually anecdotes about unspecified 'subhumans' as you scroll down.

Given the fact that this is your only post and you have 'anon' in your name, I doubt you posted the link in good faith. The function of your comment, either way, is to direct attention to the views of those trolls and paint them as some kind of 'voice of a generation'. Pretty transparent. You're not subtle.

Re: Study: 77% of young Americans too fat, mentally ill, on drugs to join military

#30
post #24
post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How can you gauge sentiment of a broad group from a self-selecting sample?

All the ones commenting on youtube are the drug using overweight people you mean? The ones that actually wanted to serve “the country” already enlisted.

It's bad statistics to assume a sample is representative of a population unless the sample selection method is very strong. Comments left on a specific youtube video says almost nothing about the population of young Americans.
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