Female Soldiers in Training will begin receiving iron-rich multivitamin supplements April 1 as part of an Army initiative to decrease attrition rates during Basic Combat Training.
Col. Jean Anderson, the Army Medical Department lead for the Soldier 2020 initiative and Lt. Col. Dawn Orta with the Office of the Surgeon General Healthcare Delivery spent the week here discussing how the multivitamins with iron program will increase training effectiveness.
Some women arrive at basic training iron deficient or anemic, Anderson said. Iron helps transport oxygen in the blood.
"If they are coming in with (iron deficiency) they are actually coming in with decreased oxygen to their tissues which affects their physical performance, their cognitive performance, and energy levels -- they just feel tired all the time and fatigued," she said.
It is estimated that 25 percent of females entering the service are iron deficient and because of the physical demand on their bodies the iron shortage increases significantly. When they reach advanced individual training a little over 50 percent of them are iron deficient.
The Army's MVI program began last year during the Soldier 2020 Senior Leader Forum when TRADOC's deputy commanding general and chief of staff endorsed the Injury Rates/Attrition Rates Working Group's recommendation to mitigate iron deficiencies.
The MVI program is modeled after a similar Air Force program which found female Service members using multivitamins shaved one to two minutes off their two-mile run times.
"If the analysis that the doctors have conducted is correct, and if we see the same significant, positive changes that the Air Force observed at their basic combat training, then yes - I think we will see a decrease in the attrition rates among our female Soldier population," said Lt. Col. James Allen, Fort Jackson's G3. "I hope a year from now we will be able to point to a higher graduation rate and trace this increase back to the decision to issue Soldiers this multivitamin - iron supplement."
Eating healthy foods during basic training is not enough, so the MVI program calls for female Soldiers to receive multivitamins while at reception. While the program is voluntary, all females will be issued the supplements, Anderson said.
Males will not be issued the multivitamins because most males don't lose iron as often as women whose iron supply can be depleted through exercise and menstruation.
"It's not mandatory," she said during a meeting with training brigade commanders Monday, "but we will just give them the vitamins."
The Soldiers will be given a 27mg dosage that is not the same as treatment for anemia. MVI will also not change the Soldier's fertility, Anderson said.
Female Soldiers will be reminded to take the multivitamins by their drill sergeants because the non-commissioned officers have the most influence on the Soldiers during training.
"I think the overall effect on basic training will be very small," Allen said. "There will be a momentary change in how we routinely conduct business, and I think units will have to determine the best way to allow female Soldiers to take a nightly vitamin. But units already have procedures in place to issue medications to Soldiers, and I am sure they can figure this out in very short order."
"This is just a short-term solution," Anderson said. "Quality nutrition is the long-term solution."
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