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No diploma for obese students
Lincoln University students must achieve index below 30 or take class to graduate
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Starting next year, it may not matter if students of one Pennsylvania university have 120 credits and a GPA of 4.0 - they may be just too fat to graduate.
According to James DeBoy, professor and chair of the department of health, physical education and recreation at Lincoln University, all students graduating in 2010 or later will have to pass a BMI test and get a 30or below — the standard for obesity. Students who do not meet this requirement will have to take HPR 103: Fitness for Life in spring 2010 to be able to graduate.
Deboy said this was a policy that was decided on four years ago in 2006 when the class entered the university, and now they will be the first class to be held to the health standard. He hopes the plan will help students labeled “at-risk” by the BMI test.
“We as a faculty need to stay the course for our kids and our future,” DeBoy said. “Right now, today’s children will not live longer than their parents. This is the first time this will happen in history. Basically every college has fitness courses — we’re forcing upon them this intervention.”
According to DeBoy, there is no other college in the nation that has adopted a plan for student health like this. DeBoy hopes the plan will address the obesity epidemic and the illnesses that come with it, including heart diseases, stroke, Type II diabetes, selected cancers and musculo-skeletal disorders.
There are 620 students in the graduating class of 2010. Of those students, 85 percent will be exempt from the class, and 15 percent will have to take it.
There are 80 students out of the class who have not had their BMI tested, and DeBoy predicts that out of the 80, maybe 16 will have to take the course.
“The biggest thing to fight is the discrimination card,”DeBoy said. “No educator wants to be on the end of that.”
DeBoy said while there has been some praise for the policy, it has come under fire. In response to criticism since the policy has been passed, DeBoy sent out a letter to faculty to tell them to “stay the course.”
“The reasons cited for colleges not opting for intervention are multitudinous: time, cost, effort, misinformation and fear. Colleges will be damned if they try and can avoid public outcry when they ignore, minimize, or deny that a problem exists or that it is simply not their business nor in their best interest,” DeBoy said in the letter to faculty.
Susan Nitzke, a nutrition professor at University of Wisconsin, said eating right, exercising and getting enough sleep should measure health rather than a number, and the tactics of Lincoln’s policy were reminiscent of those used on shows such as “The Biggest Loser.” She also said some athletes are overweight because of their high muscle mass.
“It’s not something we’ve ever considered doing,” said John Lucas, UW spokesperson. “We’re interested in a healthy student body, but it’s not something we’ve ever mandated. It’s never been our intention to regulate physical fitness.”
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There are way too many fat people on this campus. Let us hope we implement this policy ASAFP. I am sitting next to a fatty as I am typing this and she smells like Grilled Cheese. Ew.
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not all fat people stink and not all fat people are fat because of food..maybe you should go back to college and obtain some etiquette skills
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This is not legal is it? It sets a precedent that it is okay to pay for the education but if you are to fat, your money just paid for nothing? Who are they to decide the body type of tax paying american citizens? Is this not a free country where a person is free to be whom he/she decides to be? Now everyone has to be america’s next top model or a CK model? Where does it end?
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Over-motherfucking-reaction. They are not asking that everyone be “America’s top model.” They are simply asking you not to become a menace to yourself and your children. There is a huge correlation between obese parents and obese children. We are not talking about fat students. We are talking about OBESE students. There is a huge difference between those terms. I am sure you wouldn’t object to people being forced to be hospitalized or to attend therapy if they are anorexic, yes? So why the big hulllabuloo when we implement help upon an obese person? Possibly because you are obese, yourself.
Childhood obesity is becoming an epidemic. When you have 9 year olds weighing over 150 pounds, we have problems. Clearly a child is not capable of knowing how to diet, much less regulating their own diet if they knew proper nutritional information.
I flew into campus yesterday, sitting in between two obese people. There arms and rolls leaped into my seat, and their cankles took up my floor space. I had an invasion of privacy because they were unable to control their body mass. This is problematic.
There is nothing wrong with people whom are overweight. The whole “I’m okay, you’re okay, everybody’s not okay but it’s okay” thing works. They love you. You’re like they’re Fonzi. Ayyyyyy. But ultimately, when obesity effects others, the state needs to step in. If you choose to be a fat fuck, good for you. When this problem negatively effects your children and family, it is a problem.
Most obese adults were overweight as children. It is near impossible to become morbidly obese as an adult when you are around average weight as a child. Therefor, our issue is obese children. How do they come around? From obese parents.
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How about making the class mandatory for all students? There are many low-to-average BMI’s out there who really aren’t healthy…BMI is a pretty crude indicator. Most people don’t like being mandated to “get healthy” and a required class could feel like another judgment and put these students on the defensive. Most Americans could benefit from exposure to research-based health info (currently, much nutrition info is very biased, coming from the food industry). Have all students take the class, see was resonates and moves each individual to make deliberate choices about lifestyle. I hate to think that average to low BMI students are passed as healthy if they are “exercise bulemics”, drink most of their calories, survive on junk food and soda, and all other variations of life out-of-balance. They will have health consequences as well.
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This is a much better article on the topic.
http://www.cnn.com/2009/HEALTH/11/30/lincoln.fitness.overweight/index.html
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HAHAHAHAHAHA… Fatties