Pete Hegseth has sent home several overweight National Guard troops deployed to Chicago.

“Standards are back at the Department of War,” the US defence secretary posted on X, after the Texas military department announced that a “small group” of National Guard troops had been replaced as they were not “in compliance” with certain standards.

The heavyset soldiers were part of a team of 200 National Guard troops deployed to Illinois as part of Mr Trump’s crime crackdown on Chicago, which he says is a “war zone”.

The move came after a set of images taken by ABC featuring overweight guards arriving in Chicago went viral.

The picture showed three notably rotund guard members dressed in military fatigues, carrying rifles and duffle bags as they disembarked from a truck.

The Texan troops were ridiculed online, with critics nicknaming them “meal team six” and “the green buffets”.

Hegseth tired of seeing ‘fat troops’

Social media users questioned how their physique fitted with the new military fitness regime imposed by Mr Hegseth, which requires all military staff to meet strict height and fitness requirements, and to be weighed twice a year.

In a highly unusual move last month, Mr Hegseth gathered 800 of the US military’s highest-ranking officers at Marine Corps Base Quantico in Virginia to say he was tired of seeing “fat troops”.

“Frankly, it’s tiring to look out at combat formations, or really any formation, and see fat troops,” Mr Hegseth said. “It’s a bad look.”