Poll
Obesity 101: Core Curriculum or Racist?
- Obesity Illustrated (Via Combined Media.)
Before Thanksgiving we reported that Lincoln University an historically black college south of Philadelphia, has instituted a new "physical education" requirement: All students must undergo B.M.I. tests, and those considered obese (based on a score of 30 or more) are required to take a new course, "HPR 103: Fitness for Life." Students call HPR 103 the "fat course," and some complain that its not fair to institute a requirement based on size. Well, um, the story has exploded, with media outlets all over the world piling on. Today the Philadelphia Daily News reports that the Lincoln faculty are gathering to reassess the idea, amid claims that the requirement is stupid, poorly implemented, and racist — and rumors that Katie Couric is about to show up any minute. "The school is becoming the laughingstock of the whole world," said one professor to the News. James DeBoy, the long suffering white head of the "Department of Health, Physical Education, and Recreation," however, wants the school to stay the course. "As educators we must be honest with our students and inform them when behavior, attitude, knowledge bases, or habits of mind are not what we, the faculty, deem as acceptable," he wrote to his fellow faculty. Earnest or wrongheaded and insensitive? You make the call....
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Comments
When I was 10 I weighed more than the average adult. I wish someone would've stepped in early on and given me the education to understand food. Even after graduating college, I still didn't have any idea of what was good for me to eat, and it's only been in the past year I've developed any understanding at all of what proper dieting is.
Maybe this could be done more discreetly, like kids who went to the school's speech therapist, but the initiative here is key, and the target group is based on size, not race. I support any school making a serious attempt to step in an educating anyone on health, food, and fitness.
Submitted by Mr. Mohawk on 12.04.09 at 12:20.
Gah, I have approximately eleven million problems with the class. One of the main reasons this causes me mondo annoyance is that obesity is not a problem because fat people are stupid. It is a more complicated and intractable problem for all sorts of reasons, but not because overweight people don't know that vegetables are healthy and nachos are not, and the idea that all overweight people need is a nutrition class merely underscores a major stereotype about overweight people.
I would go on, but Salon already did it better than any way I could articulate: http://www.salon.com/mwt/broadsheet/feature/2009/12/01/lincoln_university/index.html
Submitted by Sardonic on 12.04.09 at 12:49.
I had to take a requisite .25 credit PE class in college, and I learned more in it about basic health than in all of elementary, middle and high school. I think bundling obesity w/ requisite health is not a bad idea. Course, having the right teacher has a lot to do with it.
Submitted by spindig on 12.04.09 at 12:54.
I think that article raises good moralistic points, but skips over the problem: people are obese, and getting more obese. People are ruining their health, and in some cases, dying.
I agree that maybe everyone should have to pass a fitness test, and that BMI is not an entirely accurate method of measuring obesity. But you can test out of the class, and I doubt it's a highly athletic test you have to take to skip the class.
The fact is, this is being called bullshit because it's hurting people's feelings and preventing people from graduating. Fine. But that doesn't mean this kind of class has no place in a collegiate curriculum. And the argument that forcing people to workout won't have any results? I call bullshit. It might be embarrassing, but I hardly think the only reaction to someone stepping in to aid your health is sulky resentment. And knowledge like that can be passed down to your kids, c'mon.
HOWEVER. Selective people being forced to pay for an extra class is retarded, and like I already said, getting into the class sounds a bit arbitrary.
Submitted by Mr. Mohawk on 12.04.09 at 01:24.
I think there would be less controversy and more impact if this was a health food cooking class instead. Each class you could go in, learn how to make one genuinely healthy dish, and then class could end with a 30 minute walk to a picnic spot where you enjoy what you made.
Submitted by londontransplant on 12.04.09 at 01:30.