Wow. I went to college in NYC eons ago, but there was no PE requirement. I think they probably assumed that being in NYC meant you were getting some degree of regular physical activity. In my case, it was walking 40 blocks a day from Grand Central to campus.
I don't have a problem with required PE, so long as it's for everyone, and there are options. Walking. Yoga. Weights. Aerobics. One of the things I liked least about PE in high school was that it was mostly forced competitive sports. I was happy to walk the track for 40 minutes, just don't make me play volleyball.
Also, if you're already fairly muscular, you can have a BMI over 30. Are they factoring that in? At any rate, just basing it on BMI is, at best, misguided. At worst it's really discriminatory and fat shamy.
@tiredfairy: I think the focus on competitive sports and games in elementary and high school gym is ridiculous and ultimately harmful--I know so many people, myself included, who just took from that a hatred of "exercise" because they weren't good at those things, and so at best they hovered on the fringes, bored, and often were abused and humiliated by classmates and teachers for making errors or being unable to score, etc. It's taken me years as an adult to get to a place where exercise can feel good, and where I can feel like I can be strong and powerful and successful at something physical. Because getting repeatedly slammed in the face with a volleyball, amazingly, didn't make me lose weight, improve my self-image, improve my coordination or provide much in the way of aerobic activity. It just made me loathe everything about the experience, and want even more to just hunker down with a book, and possibly some cookies.
My high school required daily PE (except for one semester of health), but after ninth grade, you could pick units, and that made it a lot more bearable. I still hated the teacher and felt uncomfortable in the locker room, but at least when I was doing 2 days of step, 2 days of kickboxing and 1 day of yoga a week it didn't seem quite like such an unbearable waste of time, and for the most part, no one was harrassing me about how well I was doing (and I turned out to be pretty decent at all those, and now do them at home with my Wii!)
@alula: Oh, this is so true for me, too, I just never was able to articulate it! My mom was a serious athlete growing up, so I think she expected the same from me, except I hate competitive sports, and felt diminished by my lack of skill and enjoyment of all the team sports I was encouraged to play. (And felt shame at wanting to quit.) I was also well into my mid-20s before I started exercising and actually enjoyed it. Now I understand why my mom enjoys sports: the high I get from doing yoga or running with my iPod is probably what she felt playing team sports. It's a shame that kids grow up thinking that "exercise" has to mean doing something like playing dodgeball--the most evil sport on the planet. And also--when do you ever play dodgeball as an adult? Why not teach something you can work at your whole life?
@alula: Agree wholeheartedly. There's often on emphasis on it teaching "team work", social skills, and "healthy" competition...but most of what I saw was anything but. Lots of kids just aren't good at sports, and that's okay. The should still be able to do PE without that.
My HS started letting you opt out and walk the track instead of the sports in about Junior year. It was great, I could walk 3-4 miles in that block, instead of standing around on a field, avoiding getting a ball in the face, or fellow students who took that stuff really seriously. Then they started offering aerobics and weights, which was useful in the winter when you couldn't really go out without dying of the cold. I remember when one of the football players broke into the aerobics class, thinking he was funny, to try and do the moves to prove how "easy" they were. He gave up after 5 min because he couldn't keep up.
I'm just a born walker. If the goal is fitness and health then we should be making it easier for people to get in whatever activity they actually like. Not insisting we all like the same ones.
@tiredfairy: So, so agreed. Plus all of the kids with physical differences/disabilities- competitive sports games in gym were hell on Earth for people like me. I run like a Welsh corgi.
Not only did I do poorly and get injured a lot, my classmates were alternately pitying and resentful. Let the kids who enjoy sports play sports, let the kids who hate sports do other things. No reason kids can't build trust and cooperation in partnered yoga.
Until I read this thread, I had no idea that some colleges had mandatory PE. Some of the classes described in this thread sound cool - I would have loved to take ice skating!
I'm pretty sure this is a HBCU. Most of these schools like Morehouse have dress codes.
Given the horrific obesity rates in our (black) community, this move doesn't surprise me.
However, I don't think it should be based on BMI and I don't think it should be mandatory. Do these health issues need to be addressed? Of course but not sure this is the way to go.
And I'm not surprised about forcing people to take PE, but it just seems arbitrary to make it based on BMI. Just make everyone take it and be done.
I assumed all HBCU's had a PE requirement. At Howard, we had to take a swimming class and another PE credit as well as a health class. Annoying, but understandable given the health issues in the black community.
My BMI is like 19 and I would love someone to force my ass to exercise.
That said, while I can (kind of, sort of) understand the motivation, BMI is not a solid measurement for health. If they are worried about the health of their students, then everyone should be forced to take physical education.
@Penny: or they should ensure their cafeterias serve healthy, affordable options. Or promote a fun sports culture with options for lots of different people.
PE doesn't work to make people healthy in high school, and it won't work in college. PE is a joke.
@TheGuvnah: True. Did you happen to read the cover article in Time about how diet has a great impact on health/weight than exercise? Not that exercise is not important...
In any case, by PE I meant more like the 2 dozen or so sports "courses" they had at my school, anything from golf to swimming.
I took tons of group fitness classes and a few 1 credit PE classes when I was in undergrad. I loved them (okay, except for the step class where I re-injured my ankle). Had they been mandatory, the amount of shame and guilt would have cancelled out any sort of positive feelings one gets from working out.
@boobookitt: The way I understand it, they only refuse to graduate you if you don't take the class.
Which makes the whole thing no less screwed up, but ...
This is pretty ridic. It would be one thing if it were a requirement for all students-- my liberal arts school required everyone to take at least one PE per year. I took aerobic dance for the lolz.
@funnyface: Agreed -- if there's a PE requirement, it should be required for all. I was just coming over here to write that.
A bunch of my high-school friends all went to the same University with a PE requirement, so they all took bowling together.
@funnyface: Thirding this idea. I also went to liberal arts school that required 4 semesters of PE. Even if PE meant (for me) Belly Dancing and Yoga, everyone had to do it! Because most college students probably need to be a bit more conscious about their health. I certainly knew skinny people there who survived on a diet of Olde English and cigarettes who could have used some excercise.
@funnyface: Yeah, a gym requirement in and of itself is no big deal. As much as people whined about it, all gym class meant was that you had to go to the gym twice a week. But singling out students based on a measurement that's scientifically dubious just sets them up for shame, social ridicule and crash diets to get out of taking gym. Not to mention, excercise is healthy for everyone, even skinny people.
Aside from the questionable ethics surrounding this policy, I would think that it would also open up a pandora's box of sorts. If you are taking every student's BMI and monitoring their behavior by instituting mandatory PE classes, are you then going to start forcing underweight students to attend ED seminars and nutrition classes?
It just strikes me as a completely half-baked idea. I'm willing to give the school the benefit of the doubt that they are trying to slow the rate of obesity on their campus--however questionable and hamfisted that objective may be--but it just isn't right to single out students.
Universities have a lot of issues to worry about such as binge drinking, date rape, homophobia and academic dishonesty, so why not create a comprehensive plan that would address the overall welfare of your student body? Health is not limited to your weight; it also includes your mental health and happiness. My sister's college has mandatory nutrition, PE, social awareness and environmentalism classes and it seems to work well. Granted, this is in uber-liberal VT, where drive throughs are forbidden because the state believes that if you want to gorge on greasy fast food, you should at least walk a few feet.
@Israfel_angel: By my sister's school, the local government does not allow them. It may not be state-wide, but it's definitely a law by her school. They brag about it everytime they discuss how healthy they are.
@Tchotchke: Those classes are all good, maybe a bit of a pain in the ass, but tolerable. But what's with the no drive throughs thing? What I eat is my business, as well as how I get there. Am I not allowed to eat greasy food if I tripped today and my ankle hurts? Making stupid rules doesn't make people healthier.
@sarasasa: I don't know, honestly. I actually just e-mailed my sister asking her about it, but she hasn't gotten back to me yet. I mean, regardless, the drive throughs thing was just a sidenote and not really the point of my comment. That's not meant to be bitchy, sarasasa! ;-) I'm just anticipating more questions about that, and I don't have the answers!
@Tchotchke: Oh, I'm so sorry if I came off aggressive! I know you don't make the rules for your sister's school! I should note, I don't mind having classes for nutrition and PE, it's just that the general idea that people are going to be healthier if you just ban a bunch of meaningless stuff is so annoying. It feels like those ridiculous outdated laws that say silly things like a man can't marry a woman in the presence of a dog after 6 o' clock in August, only with people actually enforcing them, you know? Not so bad to do something about them, but bad enough to be a pain in the ass (my high school was full of those meaningless rules)!
@sarasasa: I hear you. I think a big problem with all of these policies is that they choose to impose meaningless restrictions instead of actually working to do something proactive--because that would take time and require effort.
If you're unhappy with obesity rates at your school, why not serve healthier food in the cafeteria, or provide lots of things for your students to do instead of binge drinking on the weekends if they are bored? How about creating lots of fitness options like allowing students (who want it) to meet with a nutritionist and/or provide lots of varied exercise options--like yoga, or dance, or badmitton. Forcing people to take a class or imposing restrictions undermines the goal, and probably just makes people miserable. The goal, I believe, should be toward creating an environment that encourages health for all students, not trying to alter some students' BMI rate.
@Tchotchke: "If you're unhappy with obesity rates at your school, why not serve healthier food in the cafeteria, or provide lots of things for your students to do instead of binge drinking on the weekends if they are bored?"
Because that would cost money and require thought.
There've been attempts to do things like this in some of the primary school systems in England. Food services companies lie about what they spend on meals in order to increase profit margins when they sell to the schools; food service workers' wages at the schools have been cut. It's been a series of abysmal disasters.
Um, the last time I checked, exercise was important to the health of people of all shapes and sizes, regardless of weight. If they're instituting a PE requirement (my college had one, along with a swim test requirement), shouldn't it apply to all students?
@queenieinmanhattan: I know. Very odd. I have friends who are thin and who smoke a pack a day, drink a bottle of wine a day, and never exercise. I'm pretty sure they could benefit from a PE class.
@queenieinmanhattan: I can see requiring PE, but a swim test? I can't swim "properly." I can keep myself from drowning and that's enough - I'm not a big fan of water. (My undergrad was in Arizona though, so a swim test would have been extra silly.)
@heavymetalkarma: That's it, actually - you had to do five laps and tread water for five minutes, I think. Basically, the question answered was: "Can you save yourself from drowning?" Reason being, the family who donated the pool had a daughter (an alum) who'd died in a sea wreck because she didn't know how to swim.
@queenieinmanhattan: Weird... we had a required swimming class at my school too, and I always heard that the reason for that was because the son of the donating family hadn't known how to swim and had drowned.
OK, I snopes'd it, and apparently every school with a required swimming class has that story: [www.snopes.com]
While I'm glad that nobody's kid drowned, I'm kind of disappointed that one of the most interesting pieces of my school's lore is just a legend.
Lincoln is a land-grant, historically black school in Jefferson City, MO. It really surprises me that a public institution established to stand up to discrimination is, essentially, discriminating against its own student body.
my liberal arts college had a core curriculum -- ie everyone had to take certain classes. if they wanted to include PE in this, i would have been fine with that. because. its. for. everyone. this picking people out because of BMI is total bs, and not fair. BMI is not a measure of health. EVERYONE can benefit from more exercise.
@delirium.megans: Yeah, exactly. You needed 4 sports credits or whatever as part of the requirement to graduate at my college, but it was never said that whoever was over a certain weight needed it more. That would make me feel so effin' shitty.
@delirium.megans: My school didn't require any classes (unless you scored low on the writing exam, in which case you were encouraged to take a writing course), but all classes were easily accessible to all students. I was a psych major and I took at least two dance classes every semester. Everyone took dance classes because they were fun, open to everyone, and the professors really made sure that we all felt comfortable and happy to be there. I would have hated it if they made me take classes, but I can understand if you're at a school where interdisciplinary education was not encouraged how it would be a good thing.
@wooden_shoes: that is cool that you were able to shape your own experience. i went to a jesuit school so we had to do 2 philosophies, 2 theologies, 2 histories, 2 english... hmm i think 2 science? i cant remember exactly. but within those there were a lot of choices. it was basically you take those for the first 2 years and then pick your own stuff for the last 2. i actually loved my theology classes and probably wouldn't have taken them if not forced to.
@delirium.megans: At my Jesuit school we were required to take 4 semesters of philosophy (which is two shy of a minor), 3 of religious studies, 3 of English, 2 of history, 1 in another liberal art (Psych, Sociology, Poli Sci, or Comm), speech, 3 math/science including a lab, 2 of the same language, a class labeled "social justice", a class with a service learning component, and possibly a health-related class, though I could be wrong about that last one. SO MANY REQUIREMENTS!
@delirium.megans: I took a little of everything (but art, I found I didn't have time for 6 hour classes, nor did I have the talent for that stuff) because we were really encouraged to take all different classes. Plus we were a tiny tiny school and you got to know professors really well out side of classes so you wanted to take classes with these different people in different areas. But again, I know my school is totally different from most schools, so mandatory classes most likely would work better in large schools where you might not get the chance to eat dinner next to the religion professor and realize that you both have a loving for chocolate pudding and Rushdie.
Why not just require a health and PE class for *all* students? People of all weights should learn about physical activity and fitness.
My college made us take three semesters of physical ed - the first semester was about health, nutrition, first aid, and STDs; the second involved actual activity and learning about measures of fitness; and the third was an activity of your choice (options ranged from golf to kickboxing to bowling to soccer).
Somewhat horrendously, in the first term health class they did measure our BMI using calipers to pinch our fat. The results weren't announced, but everyone ended up comparing anyway. I was 2 points away from underweight at the time, but was still mortified because some of the other women were declared officially underweight, so I felt fat next to them. I would *not* recommend that this be a part of any required class.
Interestingly, in the 2nd term class, weight clearly didn't correlate with fitness, as the students who were the strongest and had the highest endurance weren't the skinniest (and the girls who were trying to keep their weight artificially low through restrictive diets were barely strong enough to complete most of the tasks).
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I don't have a problem with required PE, so long as it's for everyone, and there are options. Walking. Yoga. Weights. Aerobics. One of the things I liked least about PE in high school was that it was mostly forced competitive sports. I was happy to walk the track for 40 minutes, just don't make me play volleyball.
Also, if you're already fairly muscular, you can have a BMI over 30. Are they factoring that in? At any rate, just basing it on BMI is, at best, misguided. At worst it's really discriminatory and fat shamy.
11/19/09
My high school required daily PE (except for one semester of health), but after ninth grade, you could pick units, and that made it a lot more bearable. I still hated the teacher and felt uncomfortable in the locker room, but at least when I was doing 2 days of step, 2 days of kickboxing and 1 day of yoga a week it didn't seem quite like such an unbearable waste of time, and for the most part, no one was harrassing me about how well I was doing (and I turned out to be pretty decent at all those, and now do them at home with my Wii!)
11/19/09
11/19/09
My HS started letting you opt out and walk the track instead of the sports in about Junior year. It was great, I could walk 3-4 miles in that block, instead of standing around on a field, avoiding getting a ball in the face, or fellow students who took that stuff really seriously. Then they started offering aerobics and weights, which was useful in the winter when you couldn't really go out without dying of the cold. I remember when one of the football players broke into the aerobics class, thinking he was funny, to try and do the moves to prove how "easy" they were. He gave up after 5 min because he couldn't keep up.
I'm just a born walker. If the goal is fitness and health then we should be making it easier for people to get in whatever activity they actually like. Not insisting we all like the same ones.
#tips
11/19/09
Not only did I do poorly and get injured a lot, my classmates were alternately pitying and resentful. Let the kids who enjoy sports play sports, let the kids who hate sports do other things. No reason kids can't build trust and cooperation in partnered yoga.
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11/19/09
Given the horrific obesity rates in our (black) community, this move doesn't surprise me.
However, I don't think it should be based on BMI and I don't think it should be mandatory. Do these health issues need to be addressed? Of course but not sure this is the way to go.
11/19/09
And I'm not surprised about forcing people to take PE, but it just seems arbitrary to make it based on BMI. Just make everyone take it and be done.
I assumed all HBCU's had a PE requirement. At Howard, we had to take a swimming class and another PE credit as well as a health class. Annoying, but understandable given the health issues in the black community.
11/19/09
I agree. Have everyone take it and offer plenty of options (teams sports, yoga, etc.)
#tips
11/20/09
Excuse me, but fat bodies are not 'horrific'. Life-giving, strong, and useful, yes. Horrific, no.
11/20/09
I didn't say fat bodies were. I said the high rate of obesity in our community was. There's a difference.
#tips
11/19/09
That said, while I can (kind of, sort of) understand the motivation, BMI is not a solid measurement for health. If they are worried about the health of their students, then everyone should be forced to take physical education.
11/19/09
PE doesn't work to make people healthy in high school, and it won't work in college. PE is a joke.
11/19/09
In any case, by PE I meant more like the 2 dozen or so sports "courses" they had at my school, anything from golf to swimming.
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Which makes the whole thing no less screwed up, but ...
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A bunch of my high-school friends all went to the same University with a PE requirement, so they all took bowling together.
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It just strikes me as a completely half-baked idea. I'm willing to give the school the benefit of the doubt that they are trying to slow the rate of obesity on their campus--however questionable and hamfisted that objective may be--but it just isn't right to single out students.
Universities have a lot of issues to worry about such as binge drinking, date rape, homophobia and academic dishonesty, so why not create a comprehensive plan that would address the overall welfare of your student body? Health is not limited to your weight; it also includes your mental health and happiness. My sister's college has mandatory nutrition, PE, social awareness and environmentalism classes and it seems to work well. Granted, this is in uber-liberal VT, where drive throughs are forbidden because the state believes that if you want to gorge on greasy fast food, you should at least walk a few feet.
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#tips
11/19/09
If you're unhappy with obesity rates at your school, why not serve healthier food in the cafeteria, or provide lots of things for your students to do instead of binge drinking on the weekends if they are bored? How about creating lots of fitness options like allowing students (who want it) to meet with a nutritionist and/or provide lots of varied exercise options--like yoga, or dance, or badmitton. Forcing people to take a class or imposing restrictions undermines the goal, and probably just makes people miserable. The goal, I believe, should be toward creating an environment that encourages health for all students, not trying to alter some students' BMI rate.
11/19/09
Because that would cost money and require thought.
There've been attempts to do things like this in some of the primary school systems in England. Food services companies lie about what they spend on meals in order to increase profit margins when they sell to the schools; food service workers' wages at the schools have been cut. It's been a series of abysmal disasters.
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#tips
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#tips
11/19/09
OK, I snopes'd it, and apparently every school with a required swimming class has that story: [www.snopes.com]
While I'm glad that nobody's kid drowned, I'm kind of disappointed that one of the most interesting pieces of my school's lore is just a legend.
11/19/09
#tips
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#tips
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[en.wikipedia.org]
Land grant and location retracted; historically black part, not.
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My college made us take three semesters of physical ed - the first semester was about health, nutrition, first aid, and STDs; the second involved actual activity and learning about measures of fitness; and the third was an activity of your choice (options ranged from golf to kickboxing to bowling to soccer).
Somewhat horrendously, in the first term health class they did measure our BMI using calipers to pinch our fat. The results weren't announced, but everyone ended up comparing anyway. I was 2 points away from underweight at the time, but was still mortified because some of the other women were declared officially underweight, so I felt fat next to them. I would *not* recommend that this be a part of any required class.
Interestingly, in the 2nd term class, weight clearly didn't correlate with fitness, as the students who were the strongest and had the highest endurance weren't the skinniest (and the girls who were trying to keep their weight artificially low through restrictive diets were barely strong enough to complete most of the tasks).