College, usually the start of a gradual ascension into adulthood freedom, now comes with mandatory fitness rules for students in Oklahoma. Oral Roberts University in Tulsa is requiring all 900 of its freshmen to wear Fitbits, according to The Washington Post. The students will be graded on how well they maintain their fitness levels, which are tracked through wireless reporting to an online grading platform.
Included in that data is the number of steps they take and their heart rate information. They’re required to log an average of 10,000 steps per day and 150 minutes of intense activity, which is determined by heart rate. Students’ data is accounted for in their health and physical education class grades.
All 900 freshmen are required to wear Fitbits
This data collection comes with obvious privacy concerns, but the school says it took these into account and limits what it collects for that reason. So far, no students or parents have complained about the expensive requirement, an administrator said. Prior to using Fitbits, students were required to independently track their fitness data.
Oral Roberts is a religious school — named after evangelist Oral Roberts — that does not allow students, faculty, or staff to smoke, drink, or engage in premarital sex. During the summers, however, students have free rein of their lives; no fitness data will be collected.
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