As a fat but strong kid in my youth I’m kind of conflicted. On one hand I understand the logic. A kid with a BMI of 40 ispretty fat in most cases and I can see that a physically challenging site might be difficult or in some situations, even dangerous. The flip side is that fat kids are scouts too and to exclude them based on weight seems kind of a crappy thing to do if they are willing to attend the Jamboree.
I’d base it on fitness and ability, not on BMI. But, yeah, it makes sense. If they can’t do the tasks, they shouldn’t try to participate. A kid in a wheelchair is going to be excluded too. Life is harsh.
So would a kid be excluded if he were in a wheelchair, had asthma, or had some other condition that made strenuous activity prohibitive?
If it’s just obesity that’s targeted, that’s totally not fair. But if all mobility-challenged kids are excluded, at least one could argue it’s not an “anti-fat” policy. They would still suck for being giant meanos, though.
A BMI of 40 on a kid is pretty big - that would be a 5’ twelve-year-old kid weighing over 200 lbs. I think it’s right to be concerned about the fitness of kids who are so overweight, and who have an unknown fitness level.
But I don’t see why they can’t just test those kids individually to determine their ability to participate.
So no Scouts in wheelchairs are allowed, either? Or asthmatics? It’s not a violation of the Americans with Disabilities Act because obesity is not a protected disability, but it goes against the spirit of Scouting.
http://www.scouting.org/filestore/pdf/34059.pdf
I was a fat Patrol Leader whose boys usually won at district-wide events, whether testing their athletic or Scouting skills, but I always felt uncomfortable with the strong whiff of Hitlerjugendkeit in the Boy Scouts.
Their website says that scouts with disabilities are allowed to participate and that most activities are wheelchair accessible. They even have special counselors for scouts with autism and tourettes.
Scouts with BMI above 30 aren’t guaranteed full participation. Above 40, and kid can’t participate at all, even if his doctor certifies him as fit enough to participate. I can’t think of many adults with a BMI over 40 who would find lots of strenuous activity any kind of fun (mine is under 30 and I do feel the effect of that extra 25 pounds when I so much as climb a few sets of stairs) but kids have lots more stamina.
Yeah, I think it’s exclusionary and, at best, overly cautious ( at worse, outright discriminatory). If the kid’s doctor is willing to sign a release, I don’t see why ALL scouts who want to participate couldn’t be welcomed, with similar accomodations that are already made for the disabled.
Are we really at the point where we consider obesity to be a disability? That’s insulting to people with real disabilities.
If fatscouts want to participate they can stop shoving twinkies down their gullets and get some exercise.
Also, the very idea of “fat discrimination” is ridiculous. I also discriminate against people who don’t bathe. Does that make me the bad guy, or is it the fault of the person who can’t be bothered to take care of him/herself?
This will end well.
Isn’t morbid obesity also against the spirit of scouting? Wasn’t there a “duty to self” or someshit? A scout who can’t help being in a wheelchair can still try to keep himself healthy.
A BMI of 40 is pretty fucking fat. How many scouts are actually at that level besides Indy’s little friend at the start of the Last Crusade (who, it should be said, was a liability - what if a scout discovers a golden plate buried under a hill or something and their rotund partner is responsible for it being lost)?
Perhaps, but it does seem a bit excessive to flat out exclude fatties. Would it be so terrible to let them attend and skip some of the most strenuous activities? (Perhaps they could do a healthy cooking activity instead).
By the way, the head guy in charge, Tico Perez appears to be clinically obese in his picture and video.
Of course, he makes a commitment in the video (which was apparently shot a couple years ago) to lose weight in time for the Jamboree so that he can conform to the specs.
Did he make it? Here is a video from a couple months ago. He looks even fatter now than he did two years ago. Maybe all the issues regarding homosexuality in the Boy Scouts have caused him a lot of stress and he dealt with it by stuffing his face.
I would say it depends. If you are choosing a boyfriend or girlfriend, it’s completely reasonable to refuse to date fatties. Heck, if you are hiring a salesman or a model it’s reasonable. But if you are hiring someone to shuffle papers or program a computer, it’s somewhat lame to discriminate against fat people. Whether the law should prohibit such discrimination is a different question, of course.
Let him try. At best, he’ll succeed. At worst, he’ll fail and learn something.
The way I see it, if he’s a Scout, then he should be allowed to try - no man left behind and all that. He can’t be a Scout only when it’s convenient for other people.
This move will really help him to embrace physical and outdoor activity. :rolleyes:
Can they really not have him attempt what he can do, make him do and alternative activity or find a motivating way around the problem in some way. This does does not make for a great lesson either for him or the other kids. I’m on the fence on to which extent we should accommodate obese adults, but this is a kid. This is were they should be teaching him he can do things, he can enjoy exercise and not an opportunity to say “well, your fault, you’re excluded”.
Well a BMI of 40 is not just “fat” is morbidly obese.
200 pounds for someone 5’ is freaking huge. And I couldn’t imagine the admin in trying to individually certify everybody fit.
At that sort of a size / weight - I don’t have much of a problem for them to be excluded. Lose some weight.
If they must do it, it should be through a fitness test and not something identity based. But I don’t understand how someone in a wheelchair or breathing problems can participate in an activity that an overweight person cannot.
Feels like its being done as a signal that boy scouts is supposed to be about - ya know, camping and the outdoors, and being that fat is hardly in line with that, so put away the games and lose some weight.
A BMI of 40 is freaking huge! I don’t see why there should even be any debate about this - particularly of the sort of “providing alternate activities”
For those in a wheel chair or asthma - I can see making an accommodation, for something that you can control - not so much
Couldn’t they use them as tent pegs ?
Is there a list somewhere of what is acceptable and what isn’t? Like obese, gay, atheist, ginger = NO. Asthma, wheelchair, minority, etc = YES.
Nice way to try and rephrase with some sort of false equivalence.
First of all, we’re not talking fat, but rather dangerously obese.
And if you can’t see a difference between “losing some weight” and being of the “wrong” ethnicity - then I pity you
The site said the age group is 12-21. So mostly children. Do you expect a twelve years old to go to the supermarket and make himself a salad when his parents feed him junk food?
I expect the parent to make choices that are not killing their child. A minor doesn’t get a BMI of 40 without something seriously wrong going on, and I see no reason to enable those parents.