Health and Job-Specific Body Composition Standards for the US Air Force. Volume 1

Abstract

The Air Force Medical Service strives to deliver a fit and healthy force, which ultimately translates to sustained and enhanced mission performance. In support of these goals, the Air Force School of Aerospace Medicine's Performance Enhancement Division is pursuing a two-tiered approach to establishing physical fitness programs and standards. Tier I applies health-based standards, while Tier II standards will be (job) performance-based. Specifically, the Air Force is investigating a process to establish body composition standards that are specific to selected job categories. To this end, CSERIAC, the Crew System Ergonomics Information Analysis Center, produced this Review & Analysis which addresses issues regarding the advantages and disadvantages of establishing job-specific body composition standards. The main finding of this Review & Analysis is that the measure of body composition that would best predict military task performance is (total) fat-free mass. Also, the literature suggests that there would be a benefit to establishing job-specific body composition standards. However, the identification of specific cut-points relative to various job categories is a much more convoluted process. The sensitivity and specificity outcomes of any projected body composition metrics may be difficult to derive. Moreover, this approach may have less application for the Air Force compared with the sister Services. Volumes II and III of Health and Job-Specific Body Composition Standards for the US Air Force contain the output from literature database searches. Volume II contains non-copyrighted citations and Volume III contains copyrighted citations. A companion document, Workshop Proceedings-Health and Job-Specific Body Composition Standards for the US Air Force, documents the discussions and consensus among subject-matter experts on these topics.

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Document Details

Document Type
Technical Report
Publication Date
Jan 18, 2000
Accession Number
ADA527949

Entities

People

  • Barbara Palmer
  • Jon W. Carroll
  • Michael E. Rench
  • Stefan H. Constable

Tags

Communities of Interest

  • Biomedical

DTIC Thesaurus Topics

  • Air Force
  • Anthropometry
  • Body Composition
  • Body Weight
  • Databases
  • Ethnic Groups
  • Health Services
  • Human Factors Engineering
  • Job Analysis
  • Medical Personnel
  • Musculoskeletal Physiology
  • Performance Tests
  • Personnel Management
  • Physical Fitness
  • Psychology
  • Standards
  • Task Performance And Analysis

Readers

  • Exercise and Sports Science.
  • Instructional Design and Training Evaluation.
  • Library and Information Science

Technology Areas

  • Space