Gain Weight or Get Out: Yale Finally Drops Its Battle Over a Student's Size
Yale Peabody Museum of Natural History at Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut, (Photo: Michelle McLoughlin/Reuters)
Most college students are obsessed with their GPAs. But for the past few months, Frances Chan, a 20-year-old Yale junior, ha been preoccupied by the number on the scale. The school’s health service became convinced that Chan—she’s five-two and 92 pounds—was anorexic, and they threatened to boot her off campus if she didn’t gain weight.
Now, after a backlash against their policies, Yale is backing down from its hard-core stance and allowing Chan to stay.
Chan wrote at The Huffington Post that she went to the health center for a checkup in September after finding a lump in her breast. She was cancer-free, but because her body mass index was low, the school’s doctors flagged her as anorexic. They made Chan agree to an intense schedule of medical supervision—or else.
“Since December, I have had weekly weigh-ins and urine tests, three blood tests, appointments with a mental health counselor and a nutritionist, and even an EKG done to test my heart,” Chan wrote. “My heart was fine—as it always has been—and so was the rest of my body.”
Universities are right to be concerned about eating disorders. The National Association of Anorexia and Associated Disorders says up to 24 million Americans have one, but they can be notoriously difficult to diagnose. As a result, only one in 10 men and women with eating disorders receives treatment.
That lack of treatment can have fatal consequences. More people die from eating disorders than from any other mental illness. However, BMI isn’t always the most reliable indicator of whether a person has one. As Chan points out, sometimes students with an eating disorder can have a normal BMI. She has been the same size since high school, her whole family runs on the thin side, and she enjoys eating.
Despite stuffing herself with Cheetos, downing ginormous bowls of ice cream, and avoiding exercise, the most Chan could gain was two pounds, she said. School officials weren’t satisfied, and so Chan went public with her fight. “No more weigh-ins, no more blood draws,” she wrote. “If Yale wants to kick me out, let them try—in the meantime, I'll be studying for midterms, doing my best to make up for lost time.”
Since it’s a violation of student privacy, Yale has no official comment, but the New Haven Register reports that Chan has a new doctor and the university has agreed to let her stay in school. Let’s hope she can get back to concentrating on grades instead of how much she weighs.