PHILADELPHIA, Pa.- A Pennsylvania university’s requirement that overweight undergraduates take a fitness course to receive their degrees has raised the hackles of students and the eyebrows of health and legal experts.
Officials at historically Black Lincoln University said Friday the school is concerned about high rates of obesity and diabetes, especially in the African-American community.
“We know we’re in the midst of an obesity epidemic,” said James L. DeBoy, chairman of Lincoln’s department of health, physical education and recreation. “We have an obligation to address this head on, knowing full well there’s going to be some fallout.”
The fallout began this week on Lincoln’s campus about 45 miles southwest of Philadelphia, where seniors in the first class affected by the mandate began realizing their last chance to take the class would be this spring.
Tiana Lawson, a 21-year-old senior, wrote in last week’s edition of The Lincolnian, the student newspaper, that she “didn’t come to Lincoln to be told that my weight is not in an acceptable range. I came here to get an education.”
In an interview Friday, Lawson said she has no problem with getting healthy or losing weight. But she does have a problem with larger students being singled out.
“If Lincoln truly is concerned about everyone being healthy, then everyone should have to take this gym class, not just people who happen to be bigger,” she said.
