Ahhhhh! Oh. Sorry. I was just having this terrible nightmare where my middle school gym teacher was yelling at me to run faster during the one-mile run as I asthmatically struggled to breathe and all my classmates laughed at me. You remember the Presidential Fitness Test, right? That week or so in gym class where the social hierarchy was cemented for another year as the athletic, popular kids excelled and the other kids could, at best, hope to impress during the sit-and-reach?
That was awful. Thank goodness Obama got rid of it in 2012 and it can never bother us again — *touches earpiece* — Trump just brought it back? And WWE wrestler Triple H was standing next to him during the announcement? Yeah, OK, that makes sense actually.
Yes, on Thursday, Donald Trump —flanked by a cadre of professional golfers, wrestlers, disgraced NFL players, cabinet members, and Vice President Vance — signed an executive order reviving the Presidential fitness test.
“It’s going to be a very big thing,” Trump said at the signing, attended by press.
First established in 1966, the Presidential Fitness Test was prompted by the research of doctors Hans Kraus and Sonya Weber, who initially studied lower back pain. The Kraus-Weber Fitness test was established to determine minimum fitness levels, particularly in regard to muscle integrity. Further research by Kraus and Weber found that American children fared far worse on this test than their European counterparts — alarming the powers that be including presidents Eisenhower and Kennedy, particularly in regard to military readiness of American youth.
And yet contemporary analysis of these findings have been criticized for both methodology and conclusions, noting that European children generally did better on the test because they were generally better prepared and practiced as a result of physical education across the pond.
Alas, the fear of American children falling behind stuck and from 1966 to 2012, American children endured generally arbitrary fitness tests, particularly since the program did not provide teachers with particular structure or guidance on how to prepare or improve performance.
It is important to note, however, that research has not shown the test to be in any way harmful overall. Just inefficient, kind of pointless, and generally annoying. The revival of this test also corresponds with more and more schools cutting physical education and recess due in large part to budgetary constraints, which are antithetical to the stated goal of “making America healthy/fit again.”
As of press time, the council in charge of reestablishing the test has not announced what will be included. (Indeed, the test changed formats several times over the course of its existence.)
I hope for the sake of my 12 year old self and ego that the sit-and-reach remains.
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