Love your body and don’t let unrealistic and false ideals drive you crazy, preaches the “body positivity” movement. All bullshit, replies Coldstream Guard fitness trainer Farren Morgan. It is the oldest regiment in the Armed Forces and one of the Queen’s five life regiments. He laments, “Young recruits’ brains are like sponges, and I know a lot of them watch TV day in, day out. You see these images in the media promoting unhealthy lifestyles while celebrities say, ‘It’s okay to eat ‘whatever you want as long as you’re happy’.”
Lance Sergeant Morgan has been training for 18 years and has a different opinion. “That’s wrong. Obesity puts a strain on the state health service, and if this trend catches on among younger recruits, much of the Army’s efficiency will be wiped out.”
The young soldiers don’t train as much as they should in their free time and don’t like the high-intensity training sessions required to be a soldier. Morgan’s terse verdict: “Body positivity is a lifestyle that encourages complacency and is detrimental to the lives of young soldiers and recruits.”
The media is to blame for the confusion. They would put people in XXXL on screen to please public opinion. “But the hard facts show that promoting a dangerous lifestyle is wrong.”
Morgan says millennials need to stop pretending it’s “okay” to be fat. In the media, young people are told to embrace their bodies and only have to be happy with themselves. Then when they enlist in the army, they’re in for a shock, because then they learn that they need to get healthy and strong and train five or six times a week.
The general increase in obesity has not yet reached the Guards, the volunteers are not really fat. Morgan sees a confusion of concepts and thoughts. “When I talk to young guys, I see that there is too much misinformation about health.”
He himself knows very well what a healthy body is. But now it is frowned upon to speak unpleasant truths. “Today everyone seems too worried about speaking out about what’s right in terms of health. I think we’re afraid to see what’s happening with obesity and deal with it.”
If you want to buck the obesity trend, take inspiration from Farren Morgan’s rock-hard workout. It’s called “The Tactical Athlete” and is being propagated with videos, e-books and real courses.
