Fit for the Boy Scouts

Fit for the Boy Scouts

Chicago Tribune: You wouldn’t think the Boy Scouts of America would need to point out that someone who’s 40 pounds overweight has no business schlepping a 50-pound pack on a 10-mile backcountry hike. The other scouts in the party better Be Prepared to haul him out on a stretcher.

But the Boys Scouts’ new restrictions on participation in “high adventure” activities have set off a lot of howling about discrimination against obese people. Maybe those folks need a new motto: Be Informed. The height-and-weight guidelines, which apply to scouts and to adult volunteers, will not prevent chubby kids from joining a troop or bar Dad from helping out at the Jamboree.

The rules, based on the height-to-weight ratio called Body Mass Index, have long applied to anyone who attends the organization’s three “high adventure bases,” where scouts participate in grueling activities such as wilderness canoeing, sea exploration and weeklong mountain treks. The Health and Safety Support Committee recently decided to apply the same rules to demanding activities including caving, horse packing, mountain biking or scuba diving.

They also apply to activities in places where medical care is more than 30 minutes away. Most scouting events and activities won’t be affected.

We can’t help but observe that the public blowback — and there’s a lot of it — has largely been about adults. Not many parents were upset that their little couch potato wouldn’t be allowed to rappel off a cliff unless he lost a few pounds.

The rap against the Boy Scouts lately is that they don’t have a big enough tent. No atheists, no homosexuals, no girls. But the scouts aren’t barring overweight kids or adults from their ranks; they’re just sending a message: Be Safe.