Student at Yale Ate Ice Cream Every Day to Gain Weight or Be Expelled
A student at Yale had to eat ice cream twice a day for months to attempt to gain weight or face being expelled from the university, according to reports. No matter how much Frances Chan tried to convince the school's health officials that she always been 5-feet-2-inches and 90 pounds, they still wanted her to gain weight.
Chan's ordeal began in September of last year, when she initially visited Yale's hospital. A clinician told the 20-year-old a few months later that her body mass index was too low and that she would either have to gain weight or go on medical leave from her studies. So Chan went on a quest to gain two pounds, asking her friends for nutritional advice and doing the exact opposite.
"It felt really bad to be this powerless," she told the New Haven Register. "I ate ice cream twice a day. I ate cookies. I used elevators instead of walking up stairs. But I don't really gain any weight. I don't know if my body is even capable of gaining three more pounds."
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The constant fattening diet, along with Cheetos, diet and a lack of exercise led to Chan eventually making the weight goal given to her by the clinician. But it wasn't enough.
"You've gained two pounds, but that still isn't enough," Chan recounted being told in a piece for the Huffington Post. "Ideally, you should go up to 95 pounds."
At those words, the young history major said she "cracked"— from there, she refused to attend any more weekly weigh-ins or eat unhealthily to gain extra pounds. When she wrote her piece for HuffPo, she said she found out that Yale has a history of regulating students' BMI too closely.
"A recent graduate messaged me saying that her cholesterol had actually gone up due to the intensive weight-gain diet she used to release herself from weekly weigh-ins," Chan wrote. "By forcing standards upon us that we cannot meet, the University plays the same role as fashion magazines and swimsuit calendars that teach us about the 'correct shape' of the human body."
Since then, Chan visited another doctor off campus who confirmed that she is simply naturally thin. Yale has since backed off about her weight, and they have agreed not to put the student on medical leave.
