Getting fat in Iraq - Navy News | News from Afghanistan & Iraq - Navy Times

Getting fat in Iraq

ASAD, Iraq — Across Iraq, in dining halls the size of football fields, under glaring fluorescent lights, the array of food assaults the senses.

Pastries fill a glass case — and troops can have all they want.

Servers scoop ice cream every day at lunch and dinner.

And good luck fitting a vegetable on your plate after asking for a pork chop and receiving two, followed by a fist-sized heap of mashed potatoes or hush puppies.

If there is room for that vegetable, butter drips from the broccoli and carrots shine in sweet sauce.

Breakfast? You can have omelets, pancakes, waffles, bacon, sausage, grits, French toast — or all of the above.

As Army Capt. Jeremy Brooks sat in the dining facility, or D-Fac, at Al Asad Air Base in late July, watching such piled plates float past, he mourned the chain of events that led to his position at 399th Combat Support Hospital: nutritionist.

Once upon a time, Brooks said, service members tended to lose weight on deployments, for a simple reason: “MREs don’t taste very good.”

But now, troops gain an average of 10 pounds on deployment, Brooks said, and a recent study that has not yet been released showed that troops’ cholesterol levels are going up after just 12 months in the war zone.

And it’s not just because they prefer to load up on fries and cheeseburgers. It’s also because healthy alternatives are in short supply.

“The cards are stacked against them,” Brooks said.

In a country where every day seems the same for troops confined to bases with few recreational opportunities, the D-Fac serves as a highlight. But for young service members who grew up on fast food and were constantly told by their mothers to eat everything on their plates, good morale can quickly turn bad as they watch their stomachs grow, their energy levels shrink and their self-esteem head south — not to mention what too much fat can do to promotion points.

“I’ve had soldiers who really don’t care,” Brooks said. “Even if they’re flagged [for weight], they feel it’s more important to eat what they want.”

He said overeating also often proves to be a crutch for those with mental health issues or previously under-control eating disorders.

“Food’s hard because it’s one of those things you look forward to,” he said. “When you go to the D-Fac, you have so many options. You can have ice cream every night.”

Those decisions may seem doubly difficult when the people controlling the menu say the responsibility is all on the service members.

“Nobody forces them to eat,” said Master Sgt. Walter Gideons, food service technician for the 226th Area Support Group. “It’s strictly my fault if I gain all that weight. We have gyms.”

And Chief Warrant Officer 2 Joseph Lee Fore, a food service officer for the 2nd Marine Air Wing, said service members must learn to make better nutritional decisions when they feel their “cammies getting tight.”

Nutritionists’ roles

Just a handful of U.S. military nutritionists are in Iraq, and they often serve several roles. So when Brooks talks with troops worried about their weight, he tries to teach them how to navigate the D-Fac on their own.

“I try to show them there are healthy choices out there,” he said. “But they really don’t realize the portion sizes. The servers, they want to give you food, and they’ll give you two steaks. You probably only need one — or half of one.”

As Brooks eats, he monitors the plates of people coming through the line. He tells them to look for beans and oatmeal, but he said the whole wheat bread — normally a good source for whole grains — is more like “brown white bread.”

“Sometimes it’s all highly processed or drowned in gravy, so you really have to be careful,” he said. “Sometimes it’s the lesser of two evils: Swedish meatballs or turkey breast with gravy.”

The sauce, he said, adds fat and calories to what could otherwise be a good choice, such as baked chicken or fish.

Then, because the troops know it’s 130 degrees outside, they fill up on Gatorade. Brooks said most people get enough salt from their diets — especially D-Fac diets — that they don’t need such electrolyte drinks.

Often, young troops don’t know that what they’re eating is bad for them.

“I’ll see them get fried chicken, two grilled-cheese sandwiches, a side of chili fries, cheesesteak and orange drink,” Brooks said. “That’s like 2,400 calories. People grow up eating fast food, and then they get all these different options. They tend to gravitate toward comfort foods.”

It’s obvious that a lot of work goes into making the dining-hall experience appealing to the troops. The D-Fac’s tables, walls and doors are festooned with “We support our troops” banners and more red, white and blue than a presidential inauguration. On holidays, dining facility workers go all out with frosted cakes and bread loaves crafted into American eagles, served up next to lobsters and steaks.

“One of the biggest highlights of the day is the D-Fac,” Gideons said. “It’s a big hit. It’s a big morale booster.”

Dining facility managers in Iraq have a 21-day meal plan that tells them what they will serve, although they can choose from various selections of meats, starches, vegetables and fruits. With 22,000 meals to serve every day just at Al Asad, they have to think about shipping, storing and serving.

“It tells you exactly what you’ll have for lunch, breakfast and dinner,” Fore said. “If we see roast beef is not going, we can cut that out and order another one.”

They can add to it by offering a sandwich bar, an Indian bar, a Mexican bar and so on — which Fore and Gideons said “are a hit” with the troops. And they say they haven’t had complaints about the nutritional value of the options.

Ultimately, Gideons and Fore said, the nutritional value of what they offer is not up to them.

“This menu was developed at Fort Lee, Va., and they’re supposed to know everything,” Gideons said. “I’m sure [weight gain] is a concern, but there’s folks higher up that make those choices and make things happen.”

Still, dining hall staff does have some flexibility. At bases around Mosul, for example, D-Facs offer a daily option not seen in Asad — a “healthy options” bar that always has baked chicken and baked fish, with no sauce.

“I can see the limitations, and I agree about the whole morale boost,” Brooks said. “It’s just surprising that the people making the decisions don’t have a nutritional background.”

Younger troops often can compensate for their high caloric intake with high metabolisms, Brooks said, especially if they go on patrols outside the wire. But they can’t compensate for high cholesterol — and the D-Fac diet, he said, is setting them up for weight problems later, as well as heart disease.

Making matters worse

Adding to the load, the stress of a combat zone can bring underlying eating disorders such as anorexia or bulimia to a head. If a soldier has been keeping her anorexia under control by eating healthy foods at her home base and then suddenly can find only calorie-laden foods in the war zone, that could spell trouble.

Or a Marine with a history of binging and purging may suddenly find himself purging again after eating what he knows was too much fat.

And some people, as they grow depressed or despondent — over the loss of a buddy or the constant, hair-trigger anxiety of a combat tour — wrap themselves in food, Brooks said.

Brooks refers those troops to mental health specialists to try to deal with the underlying issues.

The ultimate answer, Brooks said, is to reduce the processed food and increase the lean meats and whole grains. Beans and legumes, he noted, seem like they would be fairly easy to transport and store.

Brooks said he does not advocate taking away every last cheeseburger from the troops.

At the same time, he said, when it comes to service members’ health, especially in a combat zone, “I think the dining facility has some kind of obligation.”