Heavier students get special treatment in Nanjing

Overweight students at Nanjing Agricultural University are making efforts to attend a sports class with the idea of the more weight they lose, the higher credit they will get.

According to the teacher, Zhou Quanfu, about 60 percent of the students applied are allowed to attend the course, whose body mass index (BMI) must reach 30 or above.

The statistics of the students' waistlines, heights, and blood fats are also collected for later comparison and analysis.

Students who attend the course have three or four specially designed sports classes every week. Each class lasts 90 minutes.

During the class, the students do various kinds of exercises, including jogging, running and plank. To make the sports class more attractive, Zhou also walks the students to nearby parks and places of interests.

"We enjoy losing weight," said Fan Xianfei, one of Zhou's students. "We also have five kilometer mini marathon together with Zhou. All the students cross the finishing line by encouraging and supporting each other."

Also, the students learn how to have healthy food and calculate calories from Zhou. They need to record what they have every day on a format distributed by Zhou. Some said they stopped having high-calorie food, such as cakes and fried chicken after knowing how many calories they contain.

The students also need to submit thesis connecting with losing weight at the end of the semester, such as "how fat forms and discomposes in the human body ", "how fat influences students' psychology" and "how overweight college students control food taking ".

"We don't feel shy or humiliated when we attend the course because we are of the same body shape," said Wu Jianwen, one of the students.

"It brings us fitness and confidence."

Many students with normal body weight also showed interest in the course and are classed as observers.