<p>While most critics understand the college's goals, many insist that Body Mass Index--the criterion being used to identify students who must enroll in the class--is not a truly accurate indicator of obesity. Others critics feel that overweight students should not be singled out, and--if the class is to be mandated--it should be so for all undergrads.</p>
<p>BMI is an easier way of determining obesity than calipers or full body immersion measurements, but it’s not very accurate for anybody that’s not a white male with an average build.</p>
<p>Personally, I think that, if colleges are going to get in the health watch-dog business, they should go after the smokers. I jog through a college campus several days a week and am appalled by how many students I see walking with lit cigarettes. The college has cracked down in recent years on smoking inside campus buildings, but outside is still fair game. Sometimes the trail of smoke is so thick that I change my route so I don’t have to run through it.</p>
<p>I’ve known plenty of people who smoke and are far more fit than non-smokers. I’m not saying smoking isn’t bad for you, but I think in the short term, unhealthy eating and exercise habits are worse. And don’t get me started on alcohol.</p>
<p>BMI is fine in my opinion. People say “omg but if you’re muscular then it says you’re obese!” true, but you have to weigh a LOT to clock in as obese. Tell me how many people you see who are muscular enough to be obese on BMI without actually being fat. If you say “not too many”… well that’s why BMI is usually good enough.</p>
<p>targeting fatties is ridiculous. everyone benefits from exercise, and forcing only overwieght students to participate in this program perpetuates the myth that fat = unhealthy and thin = healthy [even though being an active fatty is way better for you than being a lethargic thin person].</p>
<p>The other thing is that if you’re so muscular that you clock in as obese even if you have 12% body fat, then you really shouldn’t have a problem doing exercises that target people who clock in as obese with over 24% body fat.</p>
<p>^In defense of BMI, women usually can’t be that muscular to where they cross into the overweight range without the benefit of male anabolic steroids.</p>
<p>How many “active fatties” are there anyway??? I’ve never really known any except the type that are always losing weight and gaining it, and that’s the unhealthiest thing of all.</p>
<p>I think most obese people know why they’re obese, know whether weight loss is possible given the reason(s) they’re obese, and have access to resources explicating how to achieve weight loss goals – if it is possible and they wish to lose weight. Obese people lacking any of this information should see a doctor, not a college instructor. Requiring ALL students to study health and fitness academically is an acceptable general education requirement, but the purview of academia is academics, so it is inappropriate to require exercise of any student.</p>
<p>It also seems like a halfhearted attempt to fix a problem. It doesn’t matter how much exercise a college forces on its students if the students continue to eat an extreme excess of what they’re burning.</p>
<p>PE and university should be mutually exclusive. Provide fitness facilities, sure, but if you want to be a fat ass for the 4 years you’re in university and for the rest of your life, it’s not up to the university to stop you. University’s all about learning to make choices. While the university should be encouraging you to make good choices, it should NEVER make them FOR YOU. Besides, plenty of people lose huge amounts of weight without ever going to a gym. You can’t learn to be independent without actually BEING independent.</p>
<p>By your logic, getting a solid 8 hours of sleep, going to class, eating 3 square meals, not smoking, not drinking excessively, is important too, should the university enforce that too? Should dorms have bedtimes? How do you enforce bedtimes on a student who lives off campus? Most university students are 18, you can’t do that.</p>
<p>If university students can be involuntarily shipped off to whatever country ****es off the president or his crony friends against their will and get both legs shot off, then they’re old enough to make their own decisions about their own fitness.</p>
<p>And for the record, I’m against general ed requirements too.</p>
<p>The framework for the draft is still around actually. All males 18-26 have to register for the Selective Service. If WW3 ever begins, they’ll have everyone’s names ready for a draft.</p>
<p>What futurenyustudent said, plus the addition that it shouldn’t even be claimed that being overweight is bad. In the event of extreme famine, the overweight person will survive longer.</p>