BAGHDAD — When Spc. Matthew Curll left basic training for Iraq nearly a year ago, he traded a bland diet of MREs for burgers, pie and Fudgsicles.
"You go from a lot of MREs and crappy stuff at the mess hall to prime rib on Sundays," said Curll, 21, of Lancaster, Mass., over a dinner of baked chicken followed by ice cream in Baghdad's fortified Green Zone.
"I wasn't expecting it at all," added Spc. Joe Reen, 23, of Norwood, Mass., finishing a turkey wrap and green salad. "You wanted to try everything."
Troops: An article in Monday's Section A about overweight troops in Iraq incorrectly assigned sailor Emmitt Hawks the rank of specialist. Hawks is a mass communications specialist with the rank of petty officer first class. The article also described Hawks as saying that he couldn't blame a friend of his who holed up with some junk food after seeing the trailer next to his hit by a mortar shell, killing the soldier inside. No soldier was killed in that explosion.
The two indulged at first, but said they learned to resist most of the fried food and extra desserts that dominate the menu at U.S. dining facilities in Iraq. Others are not so careful, they said, including a few officers ahead of them in the chow line.
"There were three colonels in front of me who got double scoops and extra toppings," Reen said.
The Army has loaded the menu at the 70 chow halls, run by contractor KBR, with a buffet of fattening fare, from cheese steaks to tacos and Rocky Road ice cream. Many soldiers gain more than 15 pounds on a deployment, military dietitians say. They are also seeing soldiers return from Iraq with higher cholesterol, mostly due to their eating habits.
Lt. Col. Maggie Brandt, a surgeon at the 28th Combat Support Hospital who had just come from a swim, said she was dieting but couldn't resist the pistachio ice cream.
"I'm on a 'see food' diet. If I see food, I eat it," joked Brandt, 44, of Ypsilanti, Mich.
Soldiers are just as susceptible to overeating and packing on the pounds as anyone else, said Donald Williamson, a professor of nutrition at Pennington Biomedical Research Center at Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge.
"Iraq presents some added challenges people don't face here -- sitting around a lot, then going from boring to distressing in a matter of minutes," he said.
In Iraq, it's up to a handful of military dietitians to steer the troops away from that second piece of pie a la mode and to the salad bars. Most recognize the hold food has in a place where a taste of home brings comfort.
"There are three things that are absolutely crucial for morale: mail, food and showers," said 1st Lt. Susan Stankorb, a licensed dietitian with the 28th Combat Support Hospital, a mobile unit that is currently based at Baghdad's Ibn Sina Hospital. "You have to have your chicken nuggets and your ice cream now and again. For the soldiers, that helps."
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