Overweight Students Must Attend An Exercise Class

Ah, yes ... The final frontier of fascism and prejudice continues ... among educators, no less.  Along the same lines of schools that track and notify parents of their children's Body Mass Index (BMI) to those that enforce bans junk food (here and here, for example), now comes a university that is requiring students it deems overweight to take a fitness class in order to receive their degrees!  The story from the AP via FoxNews (emphasis added):

Pa. University Mandates Overweight Students to Take Fitness Class to Graduate

Saturday , November 21, 2009

PHILADELPHIA  —
A Pennsylvania university's requirement that overweight undergraduates take a fitness course to receive their degrees has raised the hackles of students and the eyebrows of health and legal experts. 

Officials at historically black Lincoln University said Friday that the school is simply concerned about high rates of obesity and diabetes, especially in the African-American community.

"We know we're in the midst of an obesity epidemic," said James L. DeBoy, chairman of Lincoln's department of health, physical education and recreation. "We have an obligation to address this head on, knowing full well there's going to be some fallout."

The fallout began this week on Lincoln's campus about 45 miles southwest of Philadelphia, where seniors - the first class affected by the mandate - began realizing their last chance to take the class would be this spring.

Tiana Lawson, a 21-year-old senior, wrote in this week's edition of The Lincolnian, the student newspaper, that she "didn't come to Lincoln to be told that my weight is not in an acceptable range. I came here to get an education."

In an interview Friday, Lawson said she has no problem with getting healthy or losing weight. But she does have a problem with larger students being singled out.

"If Lincoln truly is concerned about everyone being healthy, then everyone should have to take this gym class, not just people who happen to be bigger," she said.

The mandate, which took effect for freshmen entering in fall 2006, requires students to get tested for their body mass index, a measure of weight to height.

...

Health experts applaud the school's intent, if not its execution. Mark Rothstein, director of the bioethics institute at the University of Louisville's School of Medicine, said being forced to disclose such health information is "at least awkward and often distasteful."

And it doesn't necessarily lead to the best outcomes, he said, noting that "when the (health) goals are imposed on people, they don't do that well in meeting them."

DeBoy stressed that students are not required to lose weight or lower their BMI; they must only pass the class through attendance and participation.

"It's the sound mind and the sound body concept," DeBoy said. "I think the university, to its credit, is trying to be proactive."

Some experts said recent amendments to the Americans with Disabilities Act might lead to exemptions for morbidly obese students, who could argue that participating in the class would be dangerous.
...

In order to avoid singling out individuals, why not require EVERYONE on campus attend the course -- students, professors, support staff?  That would make if "fair" ... and would surely lead to the quick death of the requirement.  (I'd love to see the reaction of the faculty if they were also required to take the class.  Hee, hee!)