Speaker 1: Welcome to brain Stuff from how Stuff Works. Hey, brain Stuff.
Speaker 1: I'm Lauren Vogelbaum, and believe it or not, I was
Speaker 1: never particularly the athletic type. I have vivid middle school
Speaker 1: memories of being administered a standardized fitness test during gym class.
Speaker 1: I don't recall ever being taught how to do pull
Speaker 1: ups or curl ups, but I sure remember being tested
Speaker 1: on how many I could do in front of my class.
Speaker 1: The Presidential Fitness Test was a battery of physical feats
Speaker 1: designed to assess the health of school age American children.
Speaker 1: The test has since been retired and replaced by the
Speaker 1: less arbitrary and more forgiving physical fitness test known as
Speaker 1: Fitness Graham, but it left a significant mark on scholastic history.
Speaker 1: It all started in the early nineteen fifties, when fitness
Speaker 1: activists Dr Hans Krauss and Bonnie Prudent administered exercise tests
Speaker 1: to thousands of kids throughout the United States, Switzerland, Italy,
Speaker 1: and Austria. U S kids came up shockingly short. Fifty
Speaker 1: eight percent of them failed the tests, compared to just
Speaker 1: eight percent of the European kids, and then President Dwight
Speaker 1: Eisenhower was not pleased. He took action by forming the
Speaker 1: President's Council on Youth Fitness in nineteen fifty six to
Speaker 1: seek out strategies for improving American kids fitness scores. Concern
Speaker 1: mounted by the time John F. Kennedy took office in
Speaker 1: nineteen sixty he penned a Sports Illustrated op ed about
Speaker 1: the perceived problem an expert, in a very real and
Speaker 1: immediate sense, are growing softness, our increasing lack of physical
Speaker 1: fitness is a menace to our security. And so in
Speaker 1: nineteen sixty six, the Presidential Physical Fitness Challenge commenced, a
Speaker 1: competition of sorts designed to get kids excited about physical
Speaker 1: fitness as it related to military service. The challenge included
Speaker 1: activities like a softball throw along jump, and that dreaded
Speaker 1: pull up, all meant to mimic military tasks like grenade
Speaker 1: throwing and ladder climbing. To earn the coveted physical fitness awards,
Speaker 1: kids would have to place in the top eighty five
Speaker 1: percentile based on national standards. The problem with all this testing,
Speaker 1: which by the way, was usually done in front of
Speaker 1: one's peers, was that, according to experts, it didn't resemble
Speaker 1: the Krauss Webber tests. In any way. Rather than focusing
Speaker 1: on core and arm strength and improved flexibility, the Presidential
Speaker 1: Physical Fitness Challenge simply reflected the goals and priorities of
Speaker 1: the country and people who had formed their fitness philosophy
Speaker 1: during training in World War Two years later, in twelve,
Speaker 1: the test was finally abolished and replaced by a more
Speaker 1: comprehensive fitness program designed to support individual goals rather than
Speaker 1: prescribe as standard fitness regimen. The change was the result
Speaker 1: of decades of negative feedback from both students and teachers.
Speaker 1: Physical education teacher Joanna Faber told NPR the test was
Speaker 1: totally backward. We knew who was going to be last,
Speaker 1: and we were embarrassing them. We were pointing out their weakness.
Speaker 1: So where does that leave us now? And why are
Speaker 1: teachers still testing kids at all? We spoke with marisolv Zzali,
Speaker 1: a San Francisco Bay area physical education teacher and massage therapist.
Speaker 1: She said, the reason for the tests, I believe is
Speaker 1: basically to collect data so the state knows fitness levels
Speaker 1: of different demographics and counties, schools, cities, et cetera. But
Speaker 1: we teachers do our best to turn it into goal
Speaker 1: setting and teaching students about their bodies. We also turn
Speaker 1: it into awards for students with the most improvements are
Speaker 1: best scores to create some buy in and get them
Speaker 1: motivated to be fit people. While the current program continues
Speaker 1: to focus on specific areas of fitness, there's a decidedly
Speaker 1: less militaristic approach to it. For instance, Fizzali says there
Speaker 1: are different options for each of the five categories that
Speaker 1: are tested, cardiovascular fitness, muscular endurance, muscular strength, flexibility, and
Speaker 1: body composition, which is muscle to fat ratio. These options
Speaker 1: acknowledge different types of fitness far better than the original
Speaker 1: test did, taking into account the different ways kids bodies
Speaker 1: work based on age and sex, and acknowledging that fitness
Speaker 1: is a spectrum. So how many kids do well on
Speaker 1: this test? Azali said the number of kids that pass
Speaker 1: usually depends on the school. In Burlingame, California, for example,
Speaker 1: where I teach, most kids pass, I'd say, but that
Speaker 1: has to do with a lot more than just are
Speaker 1: awesome physical education teachers. She explains that the kids in
Speaker 1: her community are really active outside of school, whereas in
Speaker 1: poorer areas the number of kids that passed could be
Speaker 1: much lower. For many reasons, children might not be active
Speaker 1: outside of school due to lack of local programs, time,
Speaker 1: or funding. Punishing and humiliating tests certainly aren't the way
Speaker 1: to get kids in shape, but encouraging physical activity of
Speaker 1: some kind is important, since it's been shown to help
Speaker 1: kids build cardio fitness, strong bones and muscles, and even
Speaker 1: reduce symptoms of anxiety and depression. According to the Centers
Speaker 1: of Disease Control and Prevention, only twenty one point six
Speaker 1: percent of six to nineteen year old children and adolescence
Speaker 1: in the United States get sixty or more minutes of
Speaker 1: moderate vigorous physical activity at least five days per week.
Speaker 1: But don't be discouraged. Any activity is better than no activity.
Speaker 1: There are lots of guides online to making fitness fun,
Speaker 1: even for the less coordinated among us. Today's episode was
Speaker 1: written by Michelle Konstantinovski, produced by Tyler Clang. From on
Speaker 1: this and lots of other fitting topics, visit our home
Speaker 1: planet pastoff works dot com. H