*Limitations*

The selection of personnel was based on availability rather than on any particular characteristic associated with obesity. BMI alone may overdiagnose obesity because it does not take into account the real muscle mass, which is larger in soldiers than in the general population [29,31]. However, we used BMI to divide participants into groups to be consistent with the literature and to allow comparisons. It should be noted that soldiers in the obese range, but not in the overweight range, have an increased amount of body fat (e.g., [31]). Therefore, in the majority of our analyses, we compared soldiers at normal weight with soldiers with BMI exceeding 30 to minimize this bias. Nonetheless, our results are consistent with reports originating from other armies, as well as with general knowledge about obesity and its causes.
