Think it Over: No overweight Boy Scouts Allowed

During the latest quadrennial Boy Scouts Jamboree, Scouts who are obese were denied the chance to take part. Any Scout who had a BMI over 40 could not take part due to the physically demanding nature of the camp. There is no mentioning of Scouts who were underweight, who had low blood pressure, or who had other non-weight bearing conditions being banned or not.

There are several problems with this. The first is that the BMI is not a reliable indication of health. Not only is it a very loose reading that does not tell you anything about the person’s blood pressure, cholesterol levels or anything health-related—it was also created by not doctors, but a the Metropolitan Life Insurance Company! You would think that something so widely used as an indicator of “health” would have had some kind of scientific basis, but it does not.

Then, in 1998, the National Institutes of Health changed the standards of what it means to be overweight versus “normal” and made thousands of people overweight overnight—without them having to gain a pound. None of this is objective.

The other problem is this automatic dismissal of fat people based on weight alone. Did you know that there are hundreds (at least) of fat athletes who complete marathons and have completely healthy body statistics every year—and there are also hundreds (again, at least) of thin people who are not healthy? Yet we continue to use weight as this bench post for healthiness. In fact, weight seems to be the last acceptable form of prejudice. There are plenty of forms of prejudice against anyone, but most of these are at least met with a frown. When it comes to being fat, however, even the crusaders in other movements snivel, “Well, I’m just worried about your health!”

If people are truly worried about health, they wouldn’t ban obese Scouts from activities but welcome them with open arms—and use a doctor’s physical, not weight, as indication of readiness for the activity.

Photo courtesy of Wikipedia