Pentagon officials intend to publish a new policy later this year, a document expected to have sweeping effects on how the military defines and measures health and fitness. The review comes amid rising concern about obesity. Among civilians, it is shrinking the pool of qualified prospective recruits. And in the active-duty force, a rising number of overweight troops poses risks to readiness and health care costs.

"You can look around and see all the soldiers that are pushing that belly," said Dr. David Levitsky, a professor of nutritional science and human ecology at Cornell University who has studied military nutrition and obesity. "They have to do something about it."

The current policy requires service members to maintain body fat levels below a key threshold — 26 percent for men and 36 percent for women. And for years the Pentagon has required the services to enforce that using a notoriously low-tech "tape test."

Those standards are at the core of long-simmering controversies that pit questions of fairness against those of military readiness. Troops who fail to pass the test are enrolled in remedial fitness programs that can stigmatize or even end a military career. Yet many others believe rigid fitness standards are a vital component of the military profession, rules that stress the importance of military bearing and ultimately save lives on the battlefield.

Today, new research and technology is available, enabling the military's health experts to reassess the value, practicality and fairness of those rules. The objective now is to identify and leverage the best, most financially feasible way to distinguish between troops who are truly unhealthy and those who have nontraditional body types but are otherwise fit.