<p>The article said that these students were singled out
</p>
<p>What about those kids who gained weight while enrolled over the 4 years so that they too have or will have BMIs above 30? You know there have to be some. Will they be denied the opportunity to graduate? This policy may be motivated by real concern but whomever came up with it wasn’t thinking things all the way through.</p>
<p>Agree that the Fitness for Life class should be part of the core for everyone. I know plenty of educated people with BMI in the normal range who are complete dullards about nutrition.</p>
<p>This seems absolutely crazy to me. First, because a student might have medical issues that exacerbate obesity. Second, what if the kid used to weigh a lot more and has been losing weight steadily, but is still above a BMI of 30? Are they still not allowed to graduate despite having made great strides? Third, even though I agree obesity is a big problem in our country, being obese doesn’t prevent people from doing many jobs.</p>
<p>If obesity were a limitation for some particular program, like . . . I don’t know . . . being an airline steward/ess on planes with tiny aisles . . . then I could understand them making this a requirement.</p>
<p>“All had body mass index (BMI) scores above 30 — the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ threshold for obesity — when they arrived on campus in the fall of 2006, but none have taken college-sanctioned steps to show they’ve lost weight or at least tried. They’re in the historically black university’s first graduating class required to either have a BMI below 30 or to take “Fitness for Life,” a one semester class that mixes exercise, nutritional instruction and discussion of the risks of obesity.”</p>
<p>They are not required to become skinny or athletic. They are required to take a class that will hopefully bring some awareness, and maybe help them address their weight problem. This will benefit them personally, and the society as a whole.</p>
<p>There are plenty of classes that are required by variety of colleges in areas that have nothing to do with the students’ future careers. The requirement is based on the assumption that it is an important educational goal. Some students can test out, or fulfill the requirement by means other than taking the class, but none can graduate without it. This is completely reasonable.</p>
<p>I really think the issue is singling out students and setting a BMI requirement-- set a PE requirement if you think it’s necessary but the BMI measurement is not necessary nor is it necessary to single out obese students. I would be humiliated beyond comprehension it forced to take a class for fat kids.</p>
<p>I also fail to see why it’s okay to smoke, drink excessively, engage in promiscuous sex, etc and so forth, but being fat is a reprehensible problem that requires intervention. Yeah it’s unhealthy but so are a LOT of things college students do and I don’t know how you can single out the one issue. If so many people weren’t making money off cigarettes, nicotine addiction would probably be an epidemic, too. </p>
<p>I also think weight is a very personal issue that need only be discussed between an individual and their doctor. I would hope that no students fall into unhealthy habits trying to lose the weight to avoid the embarrassment of having to take the fat kids class. No college should be even touching the issue of weight loss without medical professionals involved in each case. It is often not just a case of putting down the doughnuts and taking a walk. If they want to do this, the only way to do it is to make the class mandatory for everyone with no BMI or health exemptions whatsover. Who knows, someday maybe even the perfectly sculpted quarterback will marry a good cook and need those skills to fall back on, and the head cheerleader will probably have babies and turn into a cow. It sure has hell stands to reason that the good metabolism we youth are often blessed with will fade someday. These “skills” are certainly not only useful to students who happen to be obese when they were hoping to graduate.</p>
<p>excellent point twisted! And I still want to know if the requirement stretches to include those seniors who have gained weight who were under 30 as frosh but are now over.</p>
Why is “singling out for inability to swim” any different? It is up to you to see it as “singling out” or as identifying a problem.
at many schools kids who are caught drinking are forced to take “alcohol ed” class if they want to remain in school.</p>
<p>When smoking was first prohibited in offices, restaurants, etc., many smokers claimed that they were discriminated against. It didn’t help them much. But many institution do offer free “quitting help” classes. People are not required to take them, but they are required to refrain from smoking on premises.</p>
<p>Since there is a great span of opinions on what exactly constitutes “promiscuous sex”, I doubt that this issue will be addressed any time soon. But many schools have mandatory sex ed seminars for freshmen during orientation that address safe sex and sexual harassment issues.</p>
<p>So what do they do - have all students ‘weigh in’ and have it noted on their record as freshmen and then repeat it as a requirement for graduation? It’s crazy. A college should focus on the mind. Most students have already had years of PE in HS and have decided by now whether they’re going to follow lifelong physical fitness practices or not. Some number of thinner people don’t perform any physical fitness at all while some not so thin people actually do practice some phusical fitness. We all have different body types.</p>
<p>I don’t think it should be the purview of colleges to require this. And I agree with the other posts that that stated that there are a lot of other behaviors, including illegal ones (drugs, underage drinking) that don’t seem to be requirements for graduation.</p>
<p>ucsd<em>ucla</em>dad,
they are not required t “weigh in” as a requirement for graduation. They are required to take a one semester “Fitness for Life” class. They can “test out” of this requirement by getting more fit on their own. It is their choice.</p>
<p>“Why is “singling out for inability to swim” any different? It is up to you to see it as “singling out” or as identifying a problem.”</p>
<p>The two are not comparable. Low BMI is not an indication of good health, and low BMI now does not mean that they will never need the skills in the class. I am probably just as unhealthy as some of the obese students on campus but I have been blessed with good metabolism and could opt out of the class. How is that remotely fair? That’s just singing out based on who LOOKS most unhealthy even if they aren’t. I need a fitness sort of class much more desperately than an overweight student who may be trying to get healthy and just hasn’t been successful yet. Weight is not an indicator you can use fairly.</p>
<p>“at many schools kids who are caught drinking are forced to take “alcohol ed” class if they want to remain in school.”</p>
<p>Yeah, when the school actually takes the initiative to try and bust anybody. You cannot tell me for a second that alcohol abuse on campus isn’t by and large overlooked. Very few colleges are rounding up students by the truckload on Saturday nights and forcing them into alcohol education classes. Maybe they should be, but they’re not.</p>
<p>“When smoking was first prohibited in offices, restaurants, etc., many smokers claimed that they were discriminated against. It didn’t help them much. But many institution do offer free “quitting help” classes. People are not required to take them, but they are required to refrain from smoking on premises.”</p>
<p>Not because it is harmful to their health, but more likely because it is unpleasant and harmful to the OTHER workers via secondhand smoke. Being obese isn’t harming anybody else but themselves. Banned from being fat on the premises? Really? This is the parallel you want to draw?</p>
this is only partially true. It was a result of general anti-tobacco campaign. And less people are smoking today as a result.
I agree that the skills taught are useful for everyone. And if you feel that you would benefit from such a class, you sure should take it, regardless of BMI. I always encouraged my kids to take advantage of their schools PE offerings, in and out of class.
<p>I wonder if they have the opposite requirement for extra low weight people including bulimic and anorexic people - do they require them to take courses designed to increase their weight? (rhetorical question)</p>
I realize we may not know the answer since I don’t think it was in the article but since they apparently don’t require ALL students to take the class then that means they must have some way to determine which students have a BMI in the obese range in order to not allow only those students to graduate. The only way I know of to do this is through measurement - usually weight vs. height.</p>
<p>Regarding the underweight students - there’s no way they’ll require them to go on medical leave unless their condition is so extreme that they can’t function yet the same metric isn’t being applied to the obese - most of whom can function fairly well at college age. They don’t faint, they can go to classes, their teeth don’t fall out, their brains still work, they can handle all coursework, and some of them can even be physically active yet still obese. A small segment of them have other genetic and physical conditions contributing to their obesity.</p>
<p>I’m not advocating obesity but I think the college should focus on academics rather than attempting to alter the lifestyles of the students. Again, I think most students have already had plenty of PE training in HS and it’s somewhat adolescent to require it at the college level. I think everyone, whether obese or not, should eat healthfully and attain appropriate exercise but I don’t see the connection to a college requiring it.</p>
<p>sptch that’s what I keep asking but the article clearly says their BMIs were over 30 as freshman and doesn’t mention any weigh in for seniors before graduation. It sounds like the obese Seniors are OK as long as they weren’t obese as frosh…makes NO sense at all and inspite of protestations by some on this thread it appears to be absolutely singling people…in this case obese freshman… out.</p>
<p>Someone said that thought that this college was an HBU. African-Americans are 1.7 times more likely to develop adult on-set diabetes which is often associated with obesity. African-American women are statistically more likely to be obese than Caucasian women. If the college is an HBU, perhaps this is part of their mission and values…to educate a population segment about something that is specifically important to them.</p>
It’s true that it might be beneficial for everybody to take the class, but for whatever reason this might not be feasible. So the college identifies those who are in the greatest need for it when they enter the school.
What if someone who tested out of foreign lang requirement forgot the language by the time they graduate? They are not given “exit exam”, even though FL proficiency is, obviously, the goal of any school with FL requirement.
I agree. And I think they are right to do so. There is no doubt that the rise in obesity has a lot more to do with the changes in diet and life stile in the last few decades than with any medical conditions that prevent people from loosing weight.</p>
<p>Obesity is a national health issue. That said, I’m from the “pick your battles” school of education … and this particular battle isn’t worth picking IMHO.</p>
<p>There is no issue here. If you’re considering Lincoln you can probably get into the other black PA U since their selectivity is almost the same. Just do that. It’s their rules. If this uproar continues you might as well stick your nose in Bob Jones’ business too.</p>