The U.S. Army aims to make ill-fitting uniforms and protective gear things of the past when it completes a body-measurement survey next year.

Supply officials ran into difficulty acquiring the correct sizes of chemical gear and body armor for troops at the beginning of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars. “Something was happening, and we didn’t know what or why,” says Cynthia Blackwell, survey program director for the Natick Soldier Research, Development and Engineering Center in Massachusetts, which is spearheading the survey.

Army officials say data from a 1988 survey are still being used to design gear, but that body types have changed significantly since.

A pilot study conducted by Natick in 2007 found the obesity epidemic plaguing the general population was “somewhat reflected in our troops,” notes Blackwell.

The height of active-duty male soldiers in 1988 averaged 69.1 in. (5 ft 9 in.) and weight was 172.7 pounds. By 2007, the average height stayed pretty much the same, but weight shot up to an average of 184.1 lb. Chest, waist, and hip girth all increased, with the average waistline expanding from 34 in. to 36.3 in.

The $6 million anthropometric survey—dubbed ANSUR II—is gathering 94 body measurements as well as 3-D scans of the body, head, face, and feet. The survey is scheduled to run through February 2012 and will measure 13,000 soldiers.

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