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A textbook for a required fitness course at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill has been revised, following student complaints that it referred to cancer as a “disease of choice” and suggested that mental strength was a key to surviving the Holocaust, according to The News & Observer. Last month, when students began to publicly criticize the book as promoting questionable science, the university said it was reviewing the text for use the fall. This week, Chapel Hill said the online text, 21st Century Fitness, published by Perceivant and co-written by two professors of life and exercise sciences at Brigham Young University, already had been changed to address those concerns.
“These edits are based on student and department faculty feedback and are part of an ongoing curriculum review process by the Exercise and Sport Science Curriculum Committee,” Chapel Hill said in a statement. “Among other changes, the publisher has confirmed that references to the Holocaust and to cancer as ‘a disease of choice’ had already been removed from the fall 2018 edition.” Textbook co-author Ron Hager, a professor of life sciences at Brigham Young, has defended the book as promoting healthy lifestyles to reduce the risk of developing certain diseases and as drawing on late Holocaust survivor Victor Frankl’s personal observations about the meaning of life. The textbook, which can be tailored to certain curricula, remains in use on other campuses.
