Thin to Graduate: College Requires a BMI Under 30 to Get a Degree

With the obsession with weight escalating as our country becomes one of the top nation's with an obesity problem, many colleges might be soon following suit to get student to take care of their bodies and pay attention to the things they are putting in their mouth, both healthy and unhealthy.

Crazy, huh?

According to Salon.com, "Since 2006, Lincoln University in Pennsylvania has had a requirement on the books that students with a Body Mass Index over 30 (marking them as clinically obese) cannot graduate unless they take a fitness class that meets three times a week. Now that some students in that category are at risk of not graduating in the spring, it's become national news, sparking a whole new debate around the Obesity Crisis and What We Ought to Do About It."

WOW?

So exactly what does this say about our society? Are we so obsessed with weight that we would jeopardize a person's education to make sure we get them in shape? When does being human and compassionate trump being stern and ruthless?

Does BMI actually give a clear indication of an individual's fitness level? No, for a number of reasons -- e.g., BMI is only meant to give a general idea of weight distribution across a population; a large amount of muscle mass can make a person with relatively little body fat technically obese (Lincoln also uses waist measurements in an effort to weed these people out); and above all, fitness and fatness are not mutually exclusive, according to Kate Harding, Salon.com Contributor.

So, what does that mean for the student who do not fit the requirements? They are forced to take the remedial fitness class in order to graduate, it's part of the curriculum.

What do you think this is going to do to their Admissions process? Will it go up or down?

Now for the kicker....

Lincoln University in Pennsylvania is a historically black college.

In his 2004 book "The Obesity Myth," Paul Campos notes that the First National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey found in 1998 that "among black men and women, the lowest mortality rate occurred at a BMI of 27, that is, 'overweight.' Although among whites the lowest mortality rate was observed between 24 and 25 (the very top of the government's recommended weight range), the data once again confirmed a broad range of about nine BMI units, between BMI 22 and 31 for blacks, and 20 and 29 for whites, across which there was no significant variation in risk according to BMI." Even more surprisingly, later in the book he writes that black women "seem to suffer no significant ill health effects even from extreme levels of fatness. Researchers have been unable to find a relationship between increased mortality and body mass among African-American women who are classified as 'morbidly obese.'" Presuming that Lincoln students with a BMI over 30 are unhealthy, then, is not only problematic because using BMI as a measure of individual health always is, but because that number is primarily based on how fatness correlates to illness among white people.

My Thoughts...

Now that you know its a historically black college, what are your thoughts? How do you feel about this requirement? Is it fair? Do you think it is necessary?

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