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Acceptance And Tolerance Meet The Obesity Police
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I went to Haverford College, at the time an all-men's school transitioning to co-ed (we had female transfers, and went full-co-ed shortly afterwards). Our sister school -- you could take classes there and live on that campus, too -- was Bryn Mawr College, still all-women (other than transgender men who enrolled while still biologically women, and that's another issue in the news from there right now. But the story making headlines is that the school, which is about as feminist/liberal/tolerant as they come, actually sent students with high BMI numbers emails offering them help for losing weight. They what?!? Turns out that any time a student went to the infirmary, they took vitals including the BMI, and now they're using the numbers to sort-of fat-shame the students. They've apologized, but this is what happens when the inclination to scold people for being overweight conflicts with the idea that people shouldn't be, um, scolded for being overweight. Intolerance vs. tolerance. It's like they don't know which should be the priority. (Jezebel; Philadelphia Inquirer)
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