So a few weeks ago, via BlogHer, I learned of an historically black college, Lincoln University, that was introducing a new and shocking graduation requirement: If a student is tested and has a BMI over 30, they'll need to take a course on health/fitness to graduate.
BlogHer's post listed numerous rational questions that had come up on the online version of the school's on student newspaper, the Lincolnian:
- Why is the university focusing solely on BMI and physical education, when its cafeteria could be offering better-quality, fresher, organic food to its students?
- Does the university really want to lose bright, motivated students and prospective students who happen to have a BMI of 30 or higher?
- Why only target those who are declared obese based on the BMI, which is already a controversial way of measuring health?
- Why make high-BMI students pay for an extra credit hour, when students with a lower BMI do not have to do so?
- Why is the college not offering the same intervention to students with eating disorders like anorexia or bulimia?
- Is the college opening itself up to discrimination suits?
Amy Tuteur's post on Kevin MD is a scathing look at the policy, and asks several other rational questions:
- Why not have a class on substance abuse for binge drinkers, or on sexual health for those carrying STDs? Both of which cause a lot of immediate health issues...and not only for the student themselves, but for others they may encounter?
- And what, exactly, does obesity have to do with the kind of education colleges are purportedly offering to their students?
Personally, I had some other questions:
- If we grant that health is important enough to be a required class in college, why not have *everyone* required to take it. Surely plenty of people who are skinny in college hit about 35 and realize they can't indulge like they used to. Certainly nutrition and exercise are valuable subjects for all students?
- How about smokers? I mean if we're targeting behaviors that are unhealthy to students and those around them, isn't that an obvious one?
- What makes it OK to think a fat person is less deserving of or entitled to *academic advancement*? Because statistically they might be unhealthier. How big a leap is it to compare such ridiculous thinking to racist or sexist barriers to educational opportunity that used to be thrown up?
It's all kind of moot, because the University themselves realized that being accused of discrimination was not a position they wanted to be in, given their history and target student body.
But Ms. Tuteur agrees with something I blogged long ago: It's still OK to be anti-fat...the last socially acceptable "ism" around.
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