No Diploma For You!

First, let me say that I am a big unfan of nonacademic requirements in the pursuit of gaining an academic diploma. That's one of the reasons I chose the college I did - it didn't have any phys ed requirements. No foreign language requirements (I'm not morally opposed to those, just academically insufficient), and private bathrooms for the dorms were also key factors.

So you can imagine how I feel about Lincoln University making a physical education class (HPR 103 Fitness Walking/Conditioning) a graduation requirement. But not for all students. No, just the students with a BMI over 30. Actually, you don't have to imagine how I feel at all; I think it bites. I think it bites hard.

One of the reasons it bites so hard, aside from my obstinate streak that makes me keen on doing the opposite of what is required of me, is that the BMI is, actually, mostly bunk. It is as inaccurate a way of testing someone's true body fat ratio as any method devised. Why? Well, as this handy BMI calculator I found on the interwebs demonstrates, BMI is nothing but an approximation of body fat based on a person's height and weight. So

If you’re going by your body mass index, or BMI, a measure that factors in your weight and height, you are considered overweight if that score is 25 to 29, and obese if it’s 30 or higher. But a surprising new study finds that some people with a BMI pushing 28 actually have little body fat — and some folks with a BMI as low as 24 have too much.

And why might that be? Well,

Because the BMI is dependent only upon weight and height, it makes simplistic assumptions about distribution of muscle and bone mass, and thus may overestimate adiposity on those with more lean body mass (e.g. athletes) while underestimating adiposity on those with less lean body mass (e.g. the elderly).

So, just based on those things alone, the idea that a facility of higher learning would use this particular test to decree sections of the student body too fat to graduate is somewhat horrifying, considering exactly how unscientific the body mass index actually is.

But beyond that, the university is playing into the same old trope that thin is automatically healthy, and people who are obese based on the BMI are automatically not. Which is, well, wrong. It is impossible to tell, simply by looking (or by analyzing a simplistic statistical measurement), who is exercising regularly and eating the requisite fresh fruits and vegetables and who scarfs down fast food and whose only exercise is from the car to the house. That isn't to say there is no correlation. It is just that you can't tell. And that's a problem if your stated mission is,

"As health educators we're concerned with the whole student, not just the academic part, but all the components that make up health and wellness."

Instead of demonstrating that, what this policy is doing is emphasizing the external differences of some of the student body, and punishing them by adding an extra requirement to their goal of graduation that is wholly separate from teaching the student body as a whole all the components that make up health and wellness. What you're doing is assuming that those other, skinnier, students already know and practice health and wellness. And hey, maybe a lot of them do and are. But I'll bet you some of them are naturally skinny.

Now, if the class was for all students to take, I'd still be a little pissy. Because I would not want to take Fitness Walking/Conditioning. Because (a) it sounds really boring, and (b) I didn't go to college to become a healthier me. I went to college to absorb some academic knowledge. If I felt like being a healthier me, I could take one of the many phys ed type classes offered, I could walk around my campus, and/or I could go to the gym - and I did all of those things.

But to make only certain students subject to this sort of requirement is pretty atrocious. And seems more in line with certain cultural aesthetic standards than any real and true concern for students' health. Because if there was an overwhelming concern for the students' health and wellness, then every student should be pressed to take such a course.

Monday Reading List

Hugo's “Penetrate” v. “Engulf” and the multiple meanings of the “f” word: a note on feminist language:

In every women’s studies class I’ve taught here at PCC, and in many guest lectures about feminism I’ve given elsewhere, I use the “penetrate” versus “engulf” image to illustrate a basic point about the way in which our language constructs and maintains male aggression and female passivity. Even those who haven’t had heterosexual intercourse can, with only a small degree of imagination required, see how “envelop” might be just as accurate as “enter”.

Sady Doyle's The Edward Cullen Underpants Conundrum:

I mean, consider: Edward Cullen has no characteristics, as a person, other than wanting to “protect” Bella and being beautiful and gorgeous and perfect all the time. (And also an insufferable asshole, but that seems more like a mistake than a purposeful effort to give him a personality.) He has no goals in life other than being with Bella. He is over a hundred years old, and he’s never had sex with another person. He’s never wanted to have sex with another person. There is not and will never be a person or a thing or an event that is more important to him than (eventually) having sex with Bella. He is an object designed for the gratification of female desire. He’s the most ridiculous person who’s so amazing at everything, and he’s so beautiful you creamed yourself. And that’s it. And we’re used to dudes writing ladies this way, we’re even used to dudes writing ladies this way and passing it off as “literature,” but the idea of a female author writing a male character in this way, for the pleasure of other ladies, is profoundly disconcerting. Even to me! Because it’s backwards.

Filthy Grandeur's Presentations of violence and gender in the Twilight Novels:

Though all of the Cullens are stunningly attractive, there's a clear gendered difference in their appearances. The men are large, and strong, while the women are small and graceful. Though the women are also impeccably strong, they do not look it.

EAMD is an Angry White Girl:

First of all, I actually have no idea what, if any, of my university's admissions criteria involve race in any way. True, then I should not be arguing about them, but on the other hand, that is precisely the point--not a single goddamn one of those columns actually states how exactly race plays a role in admissions. My guess is because the writers and speculators on this campus don't actually have the slightest idea if or how race impacts admissions. They just use the assumption that it gives minority students a concrete advantage to spew unfounded bullshit about how "qualified white students" are being denied admission to make room for all the darkies who definitely wouldn't get in otherwise.

Meloukhia's Transgender Day of Remembrance:

Some people think that days of remembrance are a waste of time. Or they say that people should be thinking about this “all the time.”

Well, I do.

Every. Single. Day.

I think about it. I think about the people I haven’t known and never will know, now, because they are dead.

And I’d like you to do the same.

Because the thing about a day of remembrance is that it allows us to take a moment, together, as a collective, to acknowledge something.

From See Emily Blog, there's Books Critiquing America Series: Rethinking Thin:

Not too long ago, I thought that anyone who was overweight chose to be overweight, and that if they really wanted to be thin, they could. Many people still think this about the overweight and obese- why can’t they just eat less and exercise more? What’s keeping them from getting control of their lives? Well, according to Kolata’s book, this is a question that has been puzzling scientists for decades. And, spoiler alert, it’s rarely the obese person who is to blame for their weight.

And, because my first car handled exactly this way on ice (and snow, and sometimes rain...) a Zits comic:

Jessica Valenti At Ramapo College

Due to an unfortunate confluence of events, such as graduating two years ago and finally getting a job that I want to keep (or, at the very least, don't want to lose) as well as having taken off early on friday in order to get to a concert (sorry, boss!), I will not be seeing Jessica Valenti speaking at my old alma mater. Ramapo College of New Jersey's Women's Center is hosting Jessica Valenti from 1 to 3 today, in Friends Hall. If you live in the area and do not fear being let go, please enjoy what I cannot. I'm going to be weeping in my pretzels during that period of time.

The Audacity of Technology

For a while now, businesses have been looking into and at (or at least claiming to look into and at) their applicants Myspace and Facebook pages; and now, colleges are apparently following suit by examining students' Facebook and Myspace pages while deciding to to accept and deny (as a sidenote, apparently Facebook still isn't as ubiquitous as Myspace, as Myspace is regarded as a proper word and Facebook still gets the red squiggly lines). Indulging in behaviors and being photographed doing them -or having people even jokingly comment about them in an open forum could jeopardize their futures. One girl in the video linked claims that students looking to go to a prestigious school shouldn't be engaging in such behaviors that would give colleges pause. Another person in the video suggested looking into privacy settings, which is something (aside from my on-line stalkerish tendencies) I agree with for everyone regardless of where they are in the college application process. But the real question is, should students' on-line behaviors really negatively or positively affect their futures? Should we treat Myspaces and Facebooks as open windows to their souls? Are these behaviors all the better when cloaked in the darkness?

This sort of situation angers me. I have a pretty big problem with schools and even employers looking at a person's on-line identity and then using that as a deciding factor in whether or not to hire or accept someone. I am not a huge fan of Facebook or Myspace to begin with; I have a Facebook page, but it is pretty tame. And that is because I am pretty tame. I would probably have no problem whatsoever in being accepted to any college or any job due to my Facebook account. At the same time though, I can't help but feel as if this is an invasion of the students' rights. The criteria for what is acceptable on a Facebook page is nebulous at best. Will a friend's drug reference on your wall be the deciding factor? Is it only the pictures? Should one scrub mention of their political affiliations or sexual identity or any other potentially discriminating aspects of their lives from their Facebook page in the event that a future employer would not want that element representing their business? My problem with this is that it seems like a highly unregulated form of discrimination. There can be no more questions asked in interviews about religion, or whether a woman is married or plans on having children in the immediate future; but now, companies have a quickstop shop for many of those answers. Have a prejudice against atheists/Hindus/Buddhists? Can't ask? Check the Facebook! Want to know that person's sexual orientation/history, but those pesky laws get in the way? Facebook to the rescue! And since there is no outward discriminatory behaviors other than the fact that the person in question didn't get the job, there is potentially no recourse to correct the situation.

I am slightly fearful of the new technological culture that seems to operate under the assumption that unless an event or emotion is documented to its fullest extent and seen by hundreds of people, it did not really happen. I am suspicious of a movement that seems to perpetuate the idea of celebrity. I question the motives of people who put up picture after picture of themselves in Playboy poses; who are photographed with bongs in their hands, with beer cans when they are underage. But at the end of the day, I do not believe those should be deciding factors in who to hire and who to accept. Colleges and businesses do have to be aware of their image, yes. But a raucous party held at the age of 16, though showing poor judgement in that instance, should not necessarily negatively impact that person's life just because there is photo evidence. And if Facebook pages and Myspace pages are being scanned for material that colleges and businesses will find harmful to their businesses, then there should be some sort of parameter; some sort of guide for those being scrutinized. Otherwise, Facebook and Myspace pages have the potential to just become names on a screen, with no discernible personality traits or interests.

I understand that privacy doesn't necessarily apply to the internet. That what I write here could be found one day, and it could affect my future. But that doesn't necessarily mean that it should. And it doesn't mean that Facebooks and Myspaces and sites of that ilk should be used as a deciding factor any more than shoeboxes full of pictures or notes passed in Geometry are -which is to say, not at all.

I Figured Out Why I Love Jessica Valenti

I had a wonderful, inspiring, crazy, intelligent, fashionista philosopher for a professor in college; she was one of the only things that could consistently get me up for an 8 o'clock class, and I took every course I could with her. I probably freaked her out more than a little bit with my devotion. The face Jessica Valenti makes at the end of this 12 second rant? Totally a face Professor Cassidy would make. Awesome!

Making faces at NeW on 12seconds.tv