Leader-Inspired Nutrition: A Framework for Promoting Healthy Nutrition Behaviors and a Nutritionally Fueled and Fit Military Force

As role models, military leaders are in a unique position to influence and inspire military members. Military leaders identify and address challenges that threaten operational readiness. A growing national concern across all military branches of service is Service members’ suboptimal nutritional fitness, underpinned by increasing rates of food insecurity and obesity, inadequate nutrition knowledge and cooking skills, and limited access to healthier food options within the military nutrition environment. Military leaders set the standards, conditions, and policies for achieving their organization’s goals. Therefore, Leader-Inspired Nutrition (LIN) is an evidence-based, proposed framework for how military leaders can engage Service members within the domain of nutritional fitness. LIN builds upon the nutritional fitness domain of the Department of Defense’s (DoD’s) Total Force Fitness framework for optimal performance. Subject matter experts in areas of nutrition science and education, military food environment, and leadership from DoD and other outside federal agencies were selected and asked to identify evidence-based strategies leaders can use to optimize nutrition readiness. This concept led to the development of the seven pillars of the LIN framework, outlining how it can be operationalized for leaders to inspire a more nutritionally fit DoD fighting force.