College's Too Fat to Graduate rule under fire.
 

(CNN) -- Most college students expect to receive their diplomas on the basis of grades, but at a Pennsylvania school, physical fitness matters too.

Students at Lincoln University with a body mass index of 30 or above, reflective of obesity, must take a fitness course that meets three hours per week. Those who are assigned to the class but do not complete it cannot graduate.

Now that the first class to have this requirement imposed is nearing graduation day -- students who entered in the fall of 2006 -- the school faces criticism from both students and outsiders about the fitness class policy.

One of those students is Tiana Lawson, 21, whose recent editorial in the student paper has drawn national attention to the issue. Lawson wrote in The Lincolnian that she would be more understanding if the requirement applied to everyone. She thinks all students, not just those with a high BMI, should have to take the class.

"I didn't come to Lincoln to be told that my weight is not in an acceptable range," Lawson wrote. "I came here to get an education which, as a three-time honor student, is something I have been doing quite well, despite the fact that I have a slightly high Body Mass Index."

Lawson, who told CNN she had been putting off getting her BMI tested until this year, recently found out she would have to take the class. At first angry, Lawson said she is now more "confused" about the requirement.

"I don't know why they would want some people to be more healthy than others," she said.

But James DeBoy, chairman of the school's Department of Health and Physical Education, says the requirement is just like courses to help students' communications or math proficiency. The faculty also has a priority to be honest with students, he said.

"We, as educators, must tell students when we believe, in our heart of hearts, when certain factors, certain behaviors, attitudes, whatever, are going to hinder that student from achieving and maximizing their life goals," he said.


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Interesting idea. I guess if you knew it was a requirement when you matriculated, it's pretty disingenuous to complain when you reach graduation and find out you fall into the group that have to take the class. I'd understand if they said you couldn't graduate if you didn't lose weight to fall under a BMI of 30.

I remember reading about this on PP.

They knew it was a requirement when they enrolled. Their bad for waiting until the last minute.

BMI is usually not a good measurement to use...o well.

Time to back off of them Ramen noodles.

It's not a great measure when you are looking at the line between normal and overweight for athletes with high muscle content. It is a VERY good measure of the level of obesity. You aren't going to find a healthy athlete with a BMI over 30. As for extreme weight lifters, they usually are over weight and can be obese.

Military academies maybe
 

I wouldn't be all that surprised to find out that the BMI measure might be used somehow by some of the Military Academies...

My university had a physical education requirement when I was there - not sure if they still have it or not. Anyway, EVERYONE had to take a general PE class their freshman year. I couldn't take that class so I had to substitute two others - I chose volleyball and western horseback riding.

This school's requirement seems a little humiliating. I don't think it's the same as requiring students in communications or mathematics to take a specified course prior to proceeding with other coursework, unless there is another physical education requirement that all students must take that is dependent on students being able to meet a certain level of fitness.

And none of that contradicted what I said. Yes, the distribution of fat does make a huge difference in how unhealthy your fat is, but nobody who is ranked as "obese" has healthy levels of fat no matter what the distribution of fat they have. All physicians would recommend that they lose weight.

I am very familiar with Lincoln U. since my alumnae chapter advises our undergrad chapter there but this is the first I'm hearing of this. I'm with the girl that said that she wouldn't have a problem with this rule if everyone were made to take the course and I agree.

There is a huge misconception out there that "skinny = healthy" and this is just not the case. There are lots of out of shape skinny folks out there that eat nothing but junk. The biggest difference is their metabolisms.

I have a very skinny friend that never exercises, eats nothing but junk and fast food at all times of the day and night, and has a freakish metabolism so she never gains weight, but who's to say that her bad eating habits and sedentary lifestyle won't catch up with her one day? The last I checked, not only fat people get sick. This mentality has to change.

I think this is a horrific rule. Not because they are doing it, but because they are choosing a select group that have to take this class that has nothing to do with their academic prowess. And to say that someone with a 30 BMI is more in need of a health class than someone with a 15 BMI is extraordinarily offensive. BMI is just not a measure of a person's health acumen in any way.

I also don't buy the "they knew about it when they enrolled" argument. I certainly didn't know every requirement of my undergrad institution when I chose to matriculate, and I doubt everyone here did, either. I learned about them after I was already a student. My first semester freshman classes were assigned to me, I did not get to register myself until second semester.

Should they have waited until their final year? No. But that doesn't matter in the grand scheme of how wrong this is. I would be very upset if I were forced to pay for 3 hours of a class that was solely based on my weight, when not every student was required to pay for the same class. Maybe if there was some way to test out of it, like there is for the "math and communications" issues they reference. Because a person with a 30 BMI is perfectly capably of being in much better shape than someone with a 28 BMI, and a person with a 30 BMI can be ridiculously knowledgeable about fitness and nutrition. The inability to manage weight does not automatically equate to being slovenly and uneducated about health.

I think a required health element is a good thing. But it's amazingly poor judgment to say that only some students have to take it, irrespective of the knowledge or abilities in the subject.

In other words, we will set "their" life goals for them.

If a student's life goal doesn't include, particularly at this point in his life, being healthy, what business is it of the faculty? They're there to guide, not to indoctrinate.

But the ditzoid who doesn't bother to ensure she meets graduation requirements hasn't learned spit, and needs to learn a little personal responsibility.

same thing isn't it?

College teaches you everything else...why not living healthy?

Anyone can lead you to water, you don't have to drink.

But they aren't trying to teach their students to be healthy. They are singling out a select group of people based on outward appearances, with no attempt made to ascertain what their actual level of knowledge is. They are making an arbitrary decision based on a flawed measurement tool to determine who is and is not academically equipped with the knowledge of how to be healthy.

Having a 30+ BMI does not mean one is uneducated about health. To presume such is a huge error.

This may be but everyone should have to take the class. Having a BMI below 30 does not mean that you eat healthy and exercise and are knowledgeable about nutrition, nor does it mean that your bad habits won't one day lead to sickness and obesity. The class wouldn't be offensive if everyone were required to take it. If the school cares so much, they should care about ALL their students getting properly educated on this topic and being healthy, not just the ones that they can visibly see are possibly not healthy. Lots of people are unhealthy and sick on the inside and no one knows anything until they end up in the hospital or die of things that their unhealthy habits contributed to. Everyone can benefit from learning how to lead a healthy lifestyle. What's sad is that they don't get it.

I do agree with this statement. Rather than argue that people that are obese are healthy, it is probably more appropriate to argue that EVERY student could benefit from learning healthy eating and living habits. One of the most harmful things we've done in our society is convince ourselves that since skinny people may not exercise or eat well that they are equally as "unhealthy" as obese people are. The research actually shows that normal weight people who exercise live longer than normal weight people who don't exercise who live longer than overweight people who exercise who live longer than overweight people that don't exercise. We've also done a disservice to people by not calling obesity when it's appropriate. It's a shock to know you are obese, but it gives you a realistic picture to the health risks you face.

Agreed...as long as we know that not everyone will take that with them when they graduate.

You got no argument here.

I'm not familiar with this philosophy. Of course being Obese is not healthy and NO ONE wants to be obese. The bigger issues for the obesed and all of us are Food Addiction, Bulimia (and other eating disorders), Our Food Industry, and how we relate to Food, Health, and Fitness in our society. It's not only Obese individuals that overindulge and are gluttonous when it comes to food. This is a societal problem and until we treat it as such and involve everyone as opposed to singling out a particular group, which causes other problems, including the eating disorders above, we will not be successful overall.

I'm really curious about the ins and outs of this. What if your BMI is below 30 until your last semester senior year? What if it's 29 one day and 30 the next and then goes back to 29? There is only one pound difference between a 29 and a 30 after all. Is this required if, at any point in your college career you hit 30? What if you get pregnant while you're in college? So many questions...

Clearly you are right, and our population is getting more and more obese at younger and younger ages (though you can't diagnose a child as obese, btw!) Anyway, even physicians get so used to seeing so many obese patients that we get immune to it and start thinking its normal. I can't tell you how many times I and many of my friends have said, "Oh, Mr. So and So is a little overweight..." looked down at chart, looked up and said, "oops, he's over 350 lbs! He doesn't look that big!"

My statement before, though, is a commonly held belief. "My skinny friends aren't any healthier than I am." It's not true. "I'm not really obese. My BMI is 30, but I'm big boned." No, you are obese. The BMI problem applies to a very small subset of elite athletes with extremely high muscle mass which is heavier than fat.

I, of course, say all of this as a life time over eater in a family of over eaters and type 2 diabetics. It is hard to control these behavioral patterns, but lying to yourself about your weight doesn't help.

Maybe I missed this, but how do they figure out who is >30? Is there a class weigh-in or something?

Also, I was under the impression that most/all universities required some sort of physical education class. Am I grossly misinformed?

Possibly...I dont recall having to take PE in college...high school yes...

Oh, I know that we were required to have 1 credit of physical education. Most of the physical education classes were 1/2 credits, so you had to take two unless you could find one worth more. However, "physical" was a stretch for some of them. Billiards, really?

I guess I just thought that was the norm. Interesting.

Physical education classes were required for some, but not all, majors at my alma mater.

When I was a communications major, it was required. When I switched over to business, it was not.

We're all required to take a PE credit but First Aid and CPR counts so that's what I took.

My alma mater didn't have a PE requirement. I do remember my mom saying she took swimming as a PE requirement when she attended Lincoln back in the day...so I guess the idea of this shouldn't be so foreign to me.

When I first started school, I was under this impression, also... until I started talking to my friends who attended other schools.

Penn State has a PE requirement. When I started school in 2002, every student had to earn 3 credits, and all PE classes were worth 1 credit (and usually only lasted for part of the semester). It was either in my sophomore or junior year when they changed the classes to 1.5 credits, but the curriculum was expanded (although not by much).

At Penn State Behrend, we were able to take everything from Golf, to Ice Skating, to First Aid/Personal Safety/CPR, Ballroom Dancing, Scuba Diving, Certified Lifeguarding, Personal Defense, Aerobic Dance, Jogging, Strenth Training, Skiing, Snowboarding... plus, a variety of health courses. You name it, they had it.

I took swimming one semester (and they added the requirement of writing a paper to bump it up the half of a credit), and a health course.

And if you played on a varsity team for the school, I believe you earned 2 credits. So you'd still have to take another PE class like everyone else.

It was a good way to spend a few hours of the week. I swam for 10 years before I got to college, but I just kind of stopped. After taking that swimming class, I was actually motivated to go to open lap swim on my own. If I didn't take that class, I probably never would have found my way to the campus pool.

I think this is a good idea as long as everyone is required to do it. Will it change everyone's life? Probably not. But sometimes, other kinds of classes don't do that, either.

Back in my day we had to take at least 2 PE credits. I took 3 because I was one credit short at one point and well, how many 1 credit courses are there? I thought it was a great opportunity to try things you've always wanted to try but didn't have time/money. I took Modern Dance, Golf and Couple, Square and Ballroom Dancing. Sadly, I've never met a man who knew how to ballroom dance, other than my dad, but my dad and I really kick it up on the dance floor! I believe Sailing was an option too!

ETA: I think Modern Dance and Couple, Square and Ballroom dancing were both very physical classes. Golf? Not so much. It was like going to the driving range twice a week.

This may have changed, but at Otterbein, we had to take 4 classes with different focuses. I took tai chi, fencing (which was AWESOME!), pilates with core stability, and group hunt seat riding. When I moved to the UK, people were SHOCKED that students had to participate in PE for academic credit. Yeah gym class.

WVU offered gym classes but they weren't a requirement for graduation. I know the yoga classes filled up really quickly, and I think swimming and ice skating were options too.

We had to take a PE credit. I took volleyball my first semester to get it out of the way. As Kappamd said though, the "physical" part certainly was a stretch...we still laugh about the girls who took bowling and riding on the bowling bus.

Using a BMI as a determiner of fitness or healthiness is ridiculous, especially at that age. My BMI was probably far under 30 in college, and my diet consisted of yogurt, pizza, and kamikazes.

We had to take 5 (!) PE classes to graduate. They've since dropped the requirement down to four. We also had to pass a swim test to graduate. However, my PEs were Snowboarding, Ice Skating, Modern Dance, Self-Defense, and Badminton, so I really took the "non-exercise" route as much as possible. PE classes were some of the highlights of my semester, since I usually took them with my friends and they were easy to get good grades in. However, most people I know didn't have a PE requirement in college and laugh at me when I talk about mine.

An unfit girl, for instance, that still looks thin to normal can have a high BMI. (Mine when I was 19 was very high for my age range and I was a size 4...but ate McDonald's every day because I could get away with it and never exercised, so my muscle to fat ratio was extremely low. Any meat I had on my bones was skin and pure fat.) I think they should require everyone to take it...I was required to take health and one 1 hour activity class and if it weren't for that I'd probably still avoid exercising and wouldn't have adjusted my eating habits.

They should NOT look at the line for athletes. I will never have the BMI of an athlete, but I can aim to be healthy in as many ways as possible (which is about food and exercise, not just one or the other). And no one should HAVE to have the BMI of an extremely fit athlete. Healthy and normal is a good goal to have.

What if my "goals" for earning a literature degree did not include any British Literature, say from . . . oh just throwing out 1750-1950. Should I have been eligible to opt out of those two courses?

Let's not pretend that the college doesn't already do this in dozens of other areas, ranging from residence life to diploma requirements. Schools already require physicals and certain inoculations. What's so different about fat content? Hurt feelings? That seems . . . poor.

Oral Roberts University screens (or used to screen) applicants they deemed to fat to matriculate.

That's a specific degree you're talking about, though. I'm sure a science major isn't forced to take BritLit 101. This doesn't have anything to do with degrees being granted, and I really question how it's going to assist any graduate in furthering their career. "Ah! You graduated from Lincoln U! Your BMI must be stellar - here, have this $100k advertising job immediately!"

I mean, if they were doing this to phys ed majors, I don't think anyone would be blinking an eyelash.

I think that you are missing the point. Your BMI may be "high" but no obese person will ever fit in a size 4 and no size 4 person has ever scored a BMI of 30! Yes, thin people can have bad eating habits, but if you look at people who have BMIs above 30, they have significantly worse eating habits and eat significantly more food than people who are thin and "say" they have bad eating habits. The obese patient will eat bad foods AND in LARGE quantities. No matter what the public tries to tell you, people don't become obese by eating the same amount of food as thin people.

I do agree, however, that Healthy and Normal is a good goal to have for everyone. The class would be helpful for all, but in the end, maybe not as needed.

I think this is well-written and I really agree with it.

We didn't have to take a phys ed in college but I took Tennis for 2 years anyways just to keep with it. (played all through high school) Most of my friends either worked out at the fitness center or took Yoga or something.

I understand what you're saying, but you could just as easily go with "core credits" or whatever and get around your objection. The fact of the matter is, colleges have had arbitrary standards students must meet in areas ranging from having sex to alcohol to education, and this doesn't seem out of line in comparison.

Beyond that, even if the "utilitarian" reason most people go to college is to get a job, the college is NOT (and should not) be slavish to that standard in the slightest. Colleges are not job factories nor career assembly plants - I'd guess every single college/university's motto and purpose statement includes a much grander purpose, whether or not it is met.