The U.S. Marine Corps has revised its body composition rules to go one step further than the Pentagon guidance released in January: Marines are expected to be slightly slimmer than the Department of Defense’s overall requirement.
Effective Jan. 1, 2026, Marines will be evaluated twice a year to ensure personnel meet the new waist-to-height ratio that is a bit lower than the Pentagon’s, according to a Marine Corps statement issued Thursday.
“The Marine Corps remains committed to upholding our warrior ethos, which requires being physically fit,” Gen. Eric Smith, Marine Corps commandant, said in the statement.
“This change to body composition program will help us balance the health and performance of our Marines,” Smith continued.
Starting in January, the Pentagon directed the military to utilize a waist-to-height ratio when evaluating the body fat of troops. Personnel are set to be evaluated twice a year, and their ratio is required to be no more than 0.55.
In accordance with that January announcement, the Corps is ordering their personnel to only contain a 0.52 or less waist-to-height ratio.
A waist-to-height ratio is calculated by dividing someone’s waist circumference by their height.
A man’s average height in the U.S. is around 5 feet, 7 inches tall with a waist circumference of 40.6 inches, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s National Center for Health Statistics, which comes to a waist-to-height ratio of 0.59. The average height for a woman is approximately 5 feet, 2 inches tall with a waist of 38.5 inches, which makes the waist-to-height ratio 0.61.
The 0.52 standard is the same for all Marines, regardless of their sex or age, the release states.
“The WHtR standard of less than or equal to 0.52 balances health with performance, serving as an early risk screening threshold that allows the Marine Corps to identify and evaluate Marines before they approach higher cardiometabolic risk levels,” the release reads.
Marines who exceed 0.52 will be required to undergo a body fat evaluation using the tape test or through bioelectrical impedance analysis, the release states.
A BIA is a test that passes low-level electrical currents through the body to measure tissue resistance to evaluate lean muscle mass versus body fat.
Once “appropriate fielding” is accomplished for the BIA test, it will replace the tape test completely for body fat evaluation, the announcement reads.
If a Marine exceeds the set standards, they will be enrolled in the Marine Corps Body Composition Program, the memo says, regardless of the physical fitness test and combat fitness test scores.
Marines who score 285 points or higher on both their physical fitness test and combat fitness test will have a body fat exception that is capped at 26% for males and 36% for females, the release says.
The current additional 1% body fat allowance for Marines scoring 250 points or higher on both tests will stay in place but can not exceed the cap of 26% for males and 36% for females, the memo reads.
Marines who previously completed a height-and-weight evaluation between Jan. 1 and the Thursday release of a Marine Administrative Message, or MARADMIN, will need to be reevaluated using the waist-to-height ratio method, the release states.
The service will also reevaluate Marines that were assigned to the Body Composition Program on or after Jan. 1 using the waist-to-height ratio, and if they are within the standard, their program assignment will be “deleted as erroneous,” the MARADMIN says. If a Marine is outside the standard, their program assignment will continue, according to the message.
The Corps is planning a comprehensive body composition study this year to “assess and refine physical standards and evaluations,” the memo says.
Read the full MARADMIN here to see each height and its corresponding maximum waist size.
Cristina Stassis is a reporter covering stories surrounding the defense industry, national security, military/veteran affairs and more. She previously worked as an editorial fellow for Defense News in 2024 where she assisted the newsroom in breaking news across Sightline Media Group.