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Dave Larsen writes about higher education.
Kelly Mori writes about health and higher education.Home > Blogs > On Campus > Archives > 2009 > November > 23 > Entry
Lose weight to graduate, says a Pennsylvania university
A Philadelphia university is requiring students to have a BMI less than 30 to graduate.
I saw this on a college newspaper Website today and although it’s not local it certainly caught my eye.
According to the Lincolnian, the student newspaper for Lincoln University in Philadelphia, students with a BMI over 30 are required to take a physical education class and get that number down before graduation.
As you can guess, there’s a lot of uproar about this.
University officials say they are trying to improve their students’ health.
Students say they’re at Lincoln to get a degree, not a BMI check.
Permalink | Comments (2) | Post your comment | Categories: Higher ed oddities
Comments
By Jeremy
November 24, 2009 7:01 AM | Link to this
As much as I think this country is horrendously overweight and a lot of bad practices are picked up during college, I think this is a bad way to go about getting people to lose weight. I can imagine there will be a lawsuit within a week about this purely because they changed the degree requirements after enrollment to something that is going to be physically impossible for a few people. If they are changing it for next years enrollment, that may be a different story, but if it is affecting those who currently attend then that university is in trouble.
By Ron
November 24, 2009 10:47 AM | Link to this
I agree with Jeremy. I agree that obesity in this country is out of control, I’m included in that group. I do however disagree with the university to take the action they have chosen. It should be a monitored situation that starts their first day, not as a last minute hurdle for graduation. I know that if the Universities that I’ve attended had a voluteer program like that, I would have probably carried those good habits with me into adulthood. Something that does an initial assessment, then monitors progress throughout your enrollment. But, I also think it should be voluntary. The fact that someone chooses to do something like this because it’s voluntary speaks volumes about their character and desire to lead a healthy life.