Here’s a raw truth: over the last twenty years or so, Americans have been force-fed the idea that we must stop expecting excellence and start accepting mediocrity. From media to politicians to business and the military, standards got swapped for sensitivities. Merit took a back seat to messaging.
And now we’re left wondering how we got to a place where striving to be great is offensive and standards are lowered to avoid the hurt feelings of those who can’t meet them.
That’s not progress. That’s regression dressed up as inclusion. And for many of us men, it’s been infuriating to watch.
And last week, it seems, we finally took a step in the right direction to getting our majority obese, majority pre-diabetic nation back in shape with President Trump’s announcement that he’s bringing back the Presidential Physical Fitness Test to schools.
The announcement formally ditches the President Youth Fitness Program introduced by President Obama in 2012 and 2013 that ended the concrete standards for fitness tests in favor of a more inclusive, feelings-first approach to exercise, which, predictably, has been a disaster and left our kids in worse shape.
Like anything else, what gets measured gets managed, and when we stopped measuring our kids’ fitness capabilities against standards, we stopped having any fitness standards at all.
The Numbers Don’t Lie: We’ve Failed Our Children
Here’s why we desperately need this back, and the statistics are absolutely damning.
Since 1970, childhood obesity rates have more than tripled, from 5% in 1971, 1974 to 17% in 2009, 2010. But it gets worse. By 2017, 2018, an estimated 19.3% of U.S. children and adolescents aged 2-19 years were obese, and as of 2023, 1 in 5 children in the US are obese.
Let me put this in perspective for you. In the Fels Longitudinal Study tracking children born between 1930 and 1993, obesity rates rose from 0% to 14% among boys and from 2% to 12% among girls. We went from basically ZERO childhood obesity in the 1930s to nearly one in five kids today. That’s insane.
And here’s what really pisses me off: only 16% of children walk or bike to school today compared with 42% in the late 1960s. We’ve engineered movement out of our kids’ lives, then act surprised when they can’t do a single pull-up.
What does this lead to? Out of shape adults, even more out of shape midlife males. Take a walk around any city these days and you’ll see exactly what I’m talking about. If you’re fit (and I’m not talking about ‘jacked, ripped, elite, athlete fit’, I’m talking about general physical preparedness), you’re in the 1%. And the benefits of parents walking/biking their kids to school go far beyond the fitness aspect. Read our own Editor-in-Chief’s ‘Manologue’ column, The Last Ride: 640+ Bike Rides to School with My Kids & Why it Meant Everything. We walk the walk here at MLM.
What the Presidential Fitness Test Actually Demanded
The Presidential Physical Fitness Award Program began in 1966 under President Lyndon B. Johnson, honoring young people who achieved 85th percentile or better on all test items.
The original test consisted of six parts: pull-ups for boys (modified pull-ups or flexed arm hang for girls), sit-ups, shuttle run, standing broad jump, 50-yard dash, and softball throw for distance. By the 1970s and 80s, the softball throw was eliminated and a one-mile run was added.
The standards weren’t impossible. In the late 1960s, to qualify, girls needed to do 50 sit-ups and boys needed 100. By 2008, an 11-year-old girl had to run a mile in under 9 minutes, do three pull-ups and complete 42 curl-ups in 60 seconds to hit that 85th percentile.
Think about that. Three pull-ups. THREE. And we couldn’t even maintain that standard.
We Test Everything Else, Why Not Fitness?
Here’s what really gets me: we have standardized testing for just about everything. We continue to try to change the testing to be more fair. We continue to try to alter and improve, if you will, every format of testing so that it’s not racially biased, it’s not physically biased, it’s not gender biased, it’s not age biased, whatever potential and possible biases you can come up with, and somehow we lost standardized testing for basic physical performance, for general health, movement, flexibility, strength, mobility, basic human functions all together. Gone. Vamos.
We took it away, took it out of our schools, and it’s wrong. It’s flat out wrong.
If we are going to test for aptitude in calculus or in science or in English, then testing for aptitude and proficiency in health and fitness is equally important if we are attempting to develop healthy habits in our youth. We even took away the SAT’s for a while, and now it seems those are back too, thankfully.
These habits include reading and studying and writing and work ethic, but also physical fitness, communication, empathy, compassion, all these things we want to develop in our youth. How can we ignore the physical component? How can you justify that?
Because here’s the other truth: being healthy physically helps you mentally, emotionally, spiritually, and ultimately, financially.
Why the “Trauma” Excuse Is Bullshit
I’m hearing some people come out and talk about how they’re “triggered” by this, how when they were kids they were nervous and scared, or they were made fun of because they couldn’t do enough push-ups or pull-ups.
You know what? I come back to AP calculus, physics, anything academic. I was nervous. I was scared. The SATs? I was probably more scared than the kid who was great at those things but couldn’t do any pull-ups. And guess what? I was forced to take the test anyway. Didn’t petition to take it untimed because of anxiety or anything, just sit down and do the best you can.
Physical test, same thing. Just grab the bar and pull yourself up. Can’t do it, accept your score and move on.
There was always this line between the jocks and the nerds, if you will. Of course, the jocks loved the physical fitness test, they were good at it. Of course, the nerds didn’t. Of course, the jocks didn’t love calculus or school, they weren’t as good at it. And guess what? The nerdy guy aced that class.
But let’s move past those outdated categories. Gone are the days of just jocks and nerds. Across the board, this is simply about being the best versions of ourselves that we can be. And if we’re trying to build better humans, you can’t ignore the physical component.
Standards Create Excellence
There have to be standards. There have to be benchmarks. We need, as individuals, as parents, to know where we stand. And if you don’t like where you stand, get better at it. If you’re happy where you stand, keep going.
The Presidential Fitness Test was developed in response to alarming findings: in the 1950s, 58% of American children failed at least one element of a basic fitness tests, compared to just 8.2% of European children. We were getting our asses kicked by European kids in basic physical competency sixty years ago, and we’ve only gotten worse since then.
The Presidential Fitness Test wasn’t about creating elite athletes. It measured cardiovascular fitness, upper-body and core strength, endurance, flexibility, and agility through five basic exercises. These are fundamental human capacities that every person should possess for basic health and functionality.
The Consequences of Lowered Expectations
The test was replaced in 2013 with the Presidential Youth Fitness Program, which emphasized “incremental improvement over exceptionalism.” Translation: we lowered the bar because too many kids couldn’t reach it, instead of helping them get stronger.
Now, we’ve spent decades making excuses, lowering standards, and protecting feelings while our children got weaker, sicker, and less capable. The Presidential Fitness Test isn’t about creating Olympic athletes. It’s about creating a baseline expectation that every American child should be able to run a mile, do a few pull-ups, and demonstrate basic physical competency.
Standards matter. Expectations matter. And if we’re serious about building better humans, the physical component isn’t negotiable. It’s time to stop apologizing for having standards and start demanding excellence from our children again, in the classroom AND in the gym.
The Presidential Fitness Test is coming back, and it’s about damn time.
In health,
midlifemalmidli
femalemidlif
Greg Scheinman
Founder, Midlife Male
52. Husband. Father. Entrepreneur. Coach.
Follow me on LinkedIn, and Instagram
midlifemal
midlifemale
midlifemal
Join 20,000+ driven men over 40 getting free weekly advice on maximizing their health, wealth, and fulfillment in midlife. Subscribe here.
