Should Universities Require Fitness for Graduation?

Posted on December 3, 2009 in Health & Medicine, Opinion

A Pennsylvania university is requiring overweight undergraduates to take a fitness course before they receive their diplomas. School officials say that they’re simply worried about high rates of obesity and disease, but the decision is causing a health controversy.

Lincoln University is imposing the requirement for the first time this year, meaning that seniors have one last chance to take the class in spring. The student outcry about the mandate includes Tina Lawson, who wrote in the school paper that she “didn’t come to Lincoln to be told that my weight is not in the acceptable range. I came here to get an education.”

Around 16 percent of the current seniors have not yet had their body mass index taken nor had taken the fitness class, according to the chairman of Lincoln’s department of health, physical education and recreation. Students with a BMI of 30 or above—considered obese—are required to take the class, which meets for three hours each week.