Pennsylvania School Adds BMI Test for Graduation
Lincoln University's recent decision to require students to undergo a physical examination before graduation has upset some students, the Lincolnian reports. If a student's body mass index surpasses 30, he or she must complete a physical education class in order to graduate.
Opponents of the requirement say the university is discriminating against obese people, the report says. Others are concerned that their time at Lincoln could drag on longer than normal because of the new class requirement.
"What's the point of this?" one freshman asks the Lincolnian. "Some students on campus are just confused why a certain BMI has to be a requirement. Are there not a sufficient amount of prerequisites to complete prior to graduating from college?"
James DeBoy, the chair of Lincoln's Department of Health, Physical Education, and Recreation, tells the Chronicle of Higher Education that the point of the new policy is to keep students healthy.
"There's an obesity epidemic," DeBoy says. "The data are clear that many young people are on this very, very dangerous collision course with heart disease, diabetes, and stroke—health problems that are particularly bothersome for the African-American community." Lincoln, in Chester County near Philadelphia, is one of the nation's oldest historically black universities.
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Reader Comments
Can people be more shallow?
This is the most outrageous thing I have ever heard! What makes the difference what size a student is? Are they confusing NMI numbers with IQ these days? Disgusting! Sorry to tell these people, but there's no fat in these people BRAINS. Good lord. Thanks for letting me put another school on my list to boycott.
Education.... not image
I can greatly understand the need for positive nutrition in high schoolers. While, I was in high school, I ate tons of food. I played sports and burned it all off. But there were girls who were starving themselves. Wrestlers who were cutting weight to be in a lower weight class so they had advantages. There were heavy people at school too that had trouble adjusting to things like phys ed. They had alternatives to this class though. Not graduating a person or persons for not meeting a physical requirement should be limited to the military or something else such as that. Young people today have an already stunted sense of self since we see Beyonce and David Beckham and think that this is what we're all suposed to look like. I had to take a physical for a job with the state a few years ago, and at 5'9" and 230 pounds, I was labeled as obese. I am not obese, they simply took a weight and measured it against my height. And since I happen to have a lot of dense muscle and a wider frame they labeled me obese. They didn't take into account my muscle mass or my body fat %. This is just another way of discriminating against people as a whole. So that the school can say, "Look at these smart, beautiful kids we have graduating." Instead of just saying, "All of the kids who graduated from our school are ready and prepared for the next step in their lives, wherever those steps take them."
I would not be surprised if they start pulling this in my home state. Since my high school days, Arizona has had one of the worst public school system in the United States. Frequently being at the bottom of the list. Subsequently we also have a dubious achievement in that we also have one of the nation's highest teen pregnancy rates.
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