Impact of compulsory military service on public health: significant benefits for obese and unfit young adult men.

ABSTRACT:

Background

Obesity and poor physical fitness are essential concerns for public health and disease prevention. Alarmingly, the prevalence of both risk factors is increasing in younger populations. We investigated what is the impact of compulsory military service on waist circumference and cardiorespiratory fitness in large sample of Finnish young men.

Methods

Our study was based on a database from the Finnish Defence Forces, which includes information on 249,279 healthy male conscripts (age 19.1 ± 0.4 years.). We measured the waist circumference, and cardiorespiratory fitness (12-min running test) of conscripts in the beginning and at the end of the service and evaluated how these values differed in individuals with different baseline data.

Results

The mean changes in

SUBMITTER: Tenkanen T 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC12931304 | biostudies-literature | 2025 Dec

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature