Pentagon chief orders review of fitness, grooming standards

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has ordered a review of military standards related to physical fitness and appearance across all services, indicating recent policies put in place to make it easier for women and minorities to serve may soon be under fire.

Hegseth ordered the under secretary of defense for personnel and readiness “to gather the existing standards set by the Military Departments pertaining to physical fitness, body composition, and grooming, which includes but is not limited to beards,” according to a memo released late Wednesday.

The undersecretary will then look into how and why those standards have changed since Jan. 1, 2015, - the year the military announced it would open all jobs to women including combat roles - and the impact of those changes, the memo states.

“We must remain vigilant in maintaining the standards that enable the men and women of our military to protect the American people and our homeland as the world' s most lethal and effective fighting force,” Hegseth says in the memo.

The memo does not offer insight into why Hegseth has directed the review, though his past and current rhetoric suggests he seeks to make the military standards stricter and less accommodating.

“Our troops will be fit — not fat. Our troops will look sharp — not sloppy. We seek only quality — not quotas. BOTTOM LINE: our @DeptofDefense will make standards HIGH & GREAT again — across the entire force,” Hegseth wrote on X late Wednesday.

Hegseth has previously suggested that physical standards for combat jobs have been lowered to meet diversity quotas, a claim that past defense officials and Democrat lawmakers have disputed.

In a Nov. 7 podcast, Hegseth said the U.S. military “should not have women in combat roles,” as it “hasn’t made us more effective. Hasn’t made us more lethal. Has made fighting more complicated.”

Later, at his Senate nomination hearing in January, Hegseth changed his tune, pledging that women will have access to combat roles, “given the standards remain high.”

“We’ll have a review to ensure the standards have not been eroded in any one of these cases,” he said at the time, alleging that physical fitness standards had been rolled back to reach “quotas” for women in infantry positions.

Hegseth in his social media post also seems to attack loosened body composition rules for recruits across the military -- a bid to get more young people to enlist as America struggles with obesity.

Each branch of the military sets its own fitness and grooming standards, with new male Air Force recruits now allowed to have 26 percent body fat, up from 20 percent, and women 36 percent, up from 28 percent.

But recruits must still meet the same standard as everyone else in their military branch in order to graduate and serve.

Hegseth is also likely to go after changes in grooming standards made in the past several years, including the 2021 Army rules that allow Black women to wear their hair in more braided styles, permit women to wear earrings and a wider range of nail polish and lipstick colors, and letting male soldiers wear clear nail polish.

Proponents of such changes argue the loosened requirements are meant to make the military more inclusive in an effort to boost enlistment numbers

The memo also singles out beards, currently not allowed in the military apart from some religious or medical exemptions, though some services have indicated that they could loosen the rules.

The Air Force, for example, in 2020 allowed five-year medical waivers for beards, an increase from the one-year waivers it previously gave out.

The issue is of particular importance to Black service members who suffer from a medical condition that leads to unwanted bumps and painful ingrown hair caused from shaving regularly. Known as pseudofolliculitis barbae, the condition occurs far more frequently among Black men compared to their white counterparts.

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