■ Australia relaxes the health conditions of recruits. The Australian Defence Force has been short of soldiers recently. Due to drug abuse or overweight, the number of school-age young people who are physically and mentally healthy in this country is decreasing. In desperation, the Ministry of National Defense decided to relax the health requirements for recruits, and people who are troubled by obesity, asthma and myopia can also serve in the army in the future. It is reported that after the relaxation of health conditions, 10% of young conscripts who were refused military service due to unqualified physical examination will have the opportunity to serve in China. Due to the high physical requirements of overseas operations, these recruits will not be sent to serve abroad. At present, there are about 34,000 students in Australia who will take a year or two off from school, go abroad with backpacks or volunteer after completing the courses in grade 12. The Australian Ministry of Defence has launched a new trick: let those who want to be soldiers serve for one year first, and if they are willing to stay in the army, they will sign a contract with the Ministry of Defence for four years. Australia's Defense Minister said that the program called "Try before you buy" is mainly aimed at tens of thousands of local high school graduates. ■ Britain intends to recruit "big" British troops. In order to recruit more people to join the army, the physical requirements have been relaxed appropriately. The upper limit of the applicant's body mass index was raised from 28 to 32. According to the definition of the World Health Organization, a BMI of more than 25 is considered "overweight" and a BMI of more than 30 is considered "obese". In order to deal with the problem of soldiers' obesity, the British army implemented the policy of "body composition measurement", requiring soldiers to carry out physical training at least three times a week. In the past, the British military's medical examination standard was to exclude obese or unsuitable candidates. A burly man can't be a tank driver, because the space in Tanqueray is very narrow. Recently, however, Britain has revised its recruitment standards and intends to recruit more "big men" who can do heavy work. This is mainly because a recent study by the British Ministry of Defence shows that in the past, the standard of conscription kept some strong people out of the barracks, but this physique has great advantages in the army and can better operate heavy weapons. ■ American fat people must lose weight if they want to join the army. There are more and more overweight people in the US military. The Pentagon usually measures whether a soldier is overweight by the weight of fat. Among American officers and men aged 20 to over 40, the upper limit of fat ratio varies from 20% to 34% according to age and gender. At present, the average weight of American servicemen is more than 16.8kg compared with that of American servicemen during the Civil War. Fearing that obesity will lead to a decline in combat effectiveness, the US military stipulates that the weight of the applicant must be normal when recruiting new recruits. This means that fat people must lose weight if they want to join the army. According to the survey, at present, 20% of men and 40% of women in the United States are at the recruitment age and are overweight, setting a record. Some officials predict that if the obesity problem is not controlled, the US military may fall into the dilemma of no soldiers available in the future. In order to remove the biggest obstacle of "obesity", the US Army is considering recruiting overweight people into the army first, and then sending them to a new preparatory military school for slimming training camp. (Wei Yuejiang Sun Longhai)