IT'S lunchtime in the canteen at Lincoln University, the oldest African-American college in America. A small number of its 2,000 students are gathered around a salad bar contemplating the healthy option. A much larger crowd has convened around a KFC franchise next door selling “large popcorn chicken”, double crunch sandwiches and hot wings.

An adjacent counter called the Grill is doing the busiest trade of all, the smell of hot oil wafting up from its menu of fried mozzarella sticks, quarter-pounders, hot dogs and Jamaican beef patties. It also serves “veggie sandwiches”, though nobody seems to want those.

The queues gathered in front of the fast food outlets are paradoxical, given the controversy that has erupted in Lincoln University. The college is the first in the US to take a coercive stance in the battle against America's obesity epidemic.

It has told its students that they must all take a test to check their weight status. Those whose results classify them as being obese will only be allowed to graduate if they take a fitness class designed to teach them healthy living.

The policy was introduced, with the approval of the college's entire 105-strong faculty, in 2005. But it is now coming to a head as the first students who entered the university under the scheme approach graduation.

Under the policy, all students must be tested for their Body Mass Index, or BMI, a recognised indication of a person's health status based on their height and weight. If a student has a BMI of more than 30 — one widely used definition of obesity — and a waist measurement of more than 35 inches for women and 40 inches for men, they are obliged to take a one-term Fitness for Life class.

The course includes walking, cycling, aerobics and lessons in healthy diet. Students who fail to take it will not graduate, no matter how good their academic performance has been.

Media outlets learned of the policy, resulting in a storm of outrage. Salon called it “discriminatory .... ”. Tiana Lawson, one of the Lincoln students coming up to graduation who could potentially fail next year unless she conforms to the course, wrote an article in the student newspaper, the Lincolnian, saying “I didn't come to Lincoln to be told that my weight is not in an acceptable range. I came here to get an education.”

Jim DeBoy, the head of the university's health, physical education and recreation department, which devised the new policy, has been forced to defend the scheme, which he insists is all about students' wellbeing.

Lincoln was founded before the civil war to educate black students shunned by all other academic institutions. Its alumni include the first black supreme court judge, Thurgood Marshall, the first president of Ghana, Kwame Nkrumah, and the singer Gil Scott-Heron.

DeBoy believes the university has a responsibility to face the crisis of obesity, which is disproportionately affecting African-Americans.

— The Guardian, London