Army Staff Sgt. Daniel Murillo conducts physical training at Ft. Bragg on Wednesday, Jan. 18, 2023, in Fayetteville, N.C. Obesity in the U.S. military surged during the pandemic, new research shows. Nearly 10,000 active duty Army soldiers became newly obese between February 2019 and June 2021, after restricted duty and limited exercise led to higher body mass scores. (AP Photo/Chris Carlson)

By The Associated Press

After gaining 30 pounds during the COVID-19 pandemic, U.S. Army Staff Sgt. Daniel Murillo is finally getting back into fighting shape.

Early pandemic lockdowns, endless hours on his laptop and heightened stress led Murillo, 27, to reach for cookies and chips in the barracks at Fort Bragg in North Carolina. Gyms were closed, organized exercise was out and Murillo’s motivation to work out on his own was low.

“I could notice it,” said Murillo, who is 5 feet, 5 inches tall and weighed as much as 192 pounds. “The uniform was tighter.”

Murillo wasn’t the only service member dealing with extra weight. New research found that obesity in the U.S. military surged during the pandemic. In the Army alone, nearly 10,000 active duty soldiers developed obesity between February 2019 and June 2021, pushing the rate to nearly a quarter of the troops studied. Increases were seen in the U.S. Navy and the Marines, too.

“The Army and the other services need to focus on how to bring the forces back to fitness,” said Tracey Perez Koehlmoos, director of the Center for Health Services Research at the Uniformed Services University in Bethesda, Maryland, who led the re\ough the Army’s Holistic Health and Fitness, or H2F, program.

“We do two runs a week, 4 to 5 miles,” Murillo said. “Some mornings I wanted to quit, but I hung in there.”

Slowly, over months, Murillo has been able to reverse the trajectory. Now, his BMI is just over 27, which falls within the Defense Department’s standard, Koehlmoos said.

She found increases in other service branches, but focused first on the Army. The research squares with trends noted by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which warned that in 2020, nearly 1 in 5 of all service members were obese.

The steady creep of obesity among service members is “alarming,” said Cheney. “The country has not approached obesity as the problem it really is,” he added.

Putting on extra pounds during the pandemic wasn’t just a military problem. A survey last year of American adults found that nearly half reported gaining weight after the first year of the COVID-19 emergency. Another study found a sharp rise in obesity among kids during the pandemic. The gains came in a country where more than 40% of American adults and nearly 20% of children struggle with obesity, according to the CDC.

“Why would we think the military is any different than a person who is not in the military?” said Dr. Amy Rothberg, an endocrinologist at the University of Michigan who directs a weight-loss program. “Under stress, we want to store calories.”

It will take broad measures to address the problem, including looking at the food offered in military cafeterias, understanding sleep patterns and treating service members with issues such as PTSD, or post-traumatic stress disorder, Rothberg said. Regarding obesity as a chronic disease that requires comprehensive care, not just willpower, is key. “We need to meet military members where they are,” she said.

A new category of effective anti-obesity drugs, including semaglutide, marketed as Wegovy, could be a powerful aid, Rothberg said. TRICARE, the Defense Department’s health plan, covers such drugs, but uptake remains low. Since June 2021, when Wegovy was approved, just 174 service members have received prescriptions, TRICARE officials said. Novo Nordisk, which makes Wegovy, funded the security group’s report, but didn’t influence the research, Rothberg said.

“People are working hard at their weight and we have to give them whatever tools we have,” Rothberg said.