Airmen and Guardians preparing to take updated physical fitness assessments this year won’t be surprised by the Pentagon’s updated body composition standards that all service members will have to meet; the Air Force worked up similar standards three years ago.
body composition
After months of speculation, the Air Force confirmed on Sept. 24 that next year Airmen will begin taking physical fitness assessments every six months, including a two-mile run test every year.
As the Air Force moves toward officially implementing waist-to-height ratio as part of its body composition program, one expert applauded the move, saying waist-to-height is a more accurate health gauge than the Air Force’s previous methods, such as abdominal circumference and body mass index (BMI).
WORLD: Personnel: New AF 12-week parental leave policy; New body composition program for fitness tests; Promotion boards will consider advanced academic degrees.
For the first time in years, the Pentagon has updated its Physical Fitness/Body Composition program, granting the services wider latitude to devise their own systems and tests. DOD Instruction 1308.03, issued March 10, allows the respective services to measure body composition using “[body fat] calculations, ...
