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Speaker 1: Welcome to brain Stuff from how Stuff Works. Hey, brain Stuff.

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Speaker 1: I'm Lauren Vogelbaum, and believe it or not, I was

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Speaker 1: never particularly the athletic type. I have vivid middle school

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Speaker 1: memories of being administered a standardized fitness test during gym class.

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Speaker 1: I don't recall ever being taught how to do pull

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Speaker 1: ups or curl ups, but I sure remember being tested

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Speaker 1: on how many I could do in front of my class.

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Speaker 1: The Presidential Fitness Test was a battery of physical feats

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Speaker 1: designed to assess the health of school age American children.

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Speaker 1: The test has since been retired and replaced by the

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Speaker 1: less arbitrary and more forgiving physical fitness test known as

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Speaker 1: Fitness Graham, but it left a significant mark on scholastic history.

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Speaker 1: It all started in the early nineteen fifties, when fitness

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Speaker 1: activists Dr Hans Krauss and Bonnie Prudent administered exercise tests

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Speaker 1: to thousands of kids throughout the United States, Switzerland, Italy,

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Speaker 1: and Austria. U S kids came up shockingly short. Fifty

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Speaker 1: eight percent of them failed the tests, compared to just

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Speaker 1: eight percent of the European kids, and then President Dwight

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Speaker 1: Eisenhower was not pleased. He took action by forming the

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Speaker 1: President's Council on Youth Fitness in nineteen fifty six to

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Speaker 1: seek out strategies for improving American kids fitness scores. Concern

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Speaker 1: mounted by the time John F. Kennedy took office in

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Speaker 1: nineteen sixty he penned a Sports Illustrated op ed about

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Speaker 1: the perceived problem an expert, in a very real and

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Speaker 1: immediate sense, are growing softness, our increasing lack of physical

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Speaker 1: fitness is a menace to our security. And so in

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Speaker 1: nineteen sixty six, the Presidential Physical Fitness Challenge commenced, a

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Speaker 1: competition of sorts designed to get kids excited about physical

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Speaker 1: fitness as it related to military service. The challenge included

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Speaker 1: activities like a softball throw along jump, and that dreaded

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Speaker 1: pull up, all meant to mimic military tasks like grenade

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Speaker 1: throwing and ladder climbing. To earn the coveted physical fitness awards,

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Speaker 1: kids would have to place in the top eighty five

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Speaker 1: percentile based on national standards. The problem with all this testing,

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Speaker 1: which by the way, was usually done in front of

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Speaker 1: one's peers, was that, according to experts, it didn't resemble

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Speaker 1: the Krauss Webber tests. In any way. Rather than focusing

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Speaker 1: on core and arm strength and improved flexibility, the Presidential

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Speaker 1: Physical Fitness Challenge simply reflected the goals and priorities of

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Speaker 1: the country and people who had formed their fitness philosophy

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Speaker 1: during training in World War Two years later, in twelve,

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Speaker 1: the test was finally abolished and replaced by a more

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Speaker 1: comprehensive fitness program designed to support individual goals rather than

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Speaker 1: prescribe as standard fitness regimen. The change was the result

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Speaker 1: of decades of negative feedback from both students and teachers.

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Speaker 1: Physical education teacher Joanna Faber told NPR the test was

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Speaker 1: totally backward. We knew who was going to be last,

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Speaker 1: and we were embarrassing them. We were pointing out their weakness.

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Speaker 1: So where does that leave us now? And why are

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Speaker 1: teachers still testing kids at all? We spoke with marisolv Zzali,

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Speaker 1: a San Francisco Bay area physical education teacher and massage therapist.

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Speaker 1: She said, the reason for the tests, I believe is

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Speaker 1: basically to collect data so the state knows fitness levels

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Speaker 1: of different demographics and counties, schools, cities, et cetera. But

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Speaker 1: we teachers do our best to turn it into goal

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Speaker 1: setting and teaching students about their bodies. We also turn

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Speaker 1: it into awards for students with the most improvements are

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Speaker 1: best scores to create some buy in and get them

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Speaker 1: motivated to be fit people. While the current program continues

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Speaker 1: to focus on specific areas of fitness, there's a decidedly

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Speaker 1: less militaristic approach to it. For instance, Fizzali says there

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Speaker 1: are different options for each of the five categories that

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Speaker 1: are tested, cardiovascular fitness, muscular endurance, muscular strength, flexibility, and

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Speaker 1: body composition, which is muscle to fat ratio. These options

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Speaker 1: acknowledge different types of fitness far better than the original

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Speaker 1: test did, taking into account the different ways kids bodies

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Speaker 1: work based on age and sex, and acknowledging that fitness

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Speaker 1: is a spectrum. So how many kids do well on

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Speaker 1: this test? Azali said the number of kids that pass

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Speaker 1: usually depends on the school. In Burlingame, California, for example,

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Speaker 1: where I teach, most kids pass, I'd say, but that

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Speaker 1: has to do with a lot more than just are

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Speaker 1: awesome physical education teachers. She explains that the kids in

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Speaker 1: her community are really active outside of school, whereas in

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Speaker 1: poorer areas the number of kids that passed could be

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Speaker 1: much lower. For many reasons, children might not be active

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Speaker 1: outside of school due to lack of local programs, time,

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Speaker 1: or funding. Punishing and humiliating tests certainly aren't the way

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Speaker 1: to get kids in shape, but encouraging physical activity of

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Speaker 1: some kind is important, since it's been shown to help

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Speaker 1: kids build cardio fitness, strong bones and muscles, and even

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Speaker 1: reduce symptoms of anxiety and depression. According to the Centers

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Speaker 1: of Disease Control and Prevention, only twenty one point six

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Speaker 1: percent of six to nineteen year old children and adolescence

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Speaker 1: in the United States get sixty or more minutes of

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Speaker 1: moderate vigorous physical activity at least five days per week.

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Speaker 1: But don't be discouraged. Any activity is better than no activity.

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Speaker 1: There are lots of guides online to making fitness fun,

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Speaker 1: even for the less coordinated among us. Today's episode was

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Speaker 1: written by Michelle Konstantinovski, produced by Tyler Clang. From on

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Speaker 1: this and lots of other fitting topics, visit our home

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Speaker 1: planet pastoff works dot com. H