President Donald Trump on Thursday moved to reinstate the Presidential Fitness Test, a decades-old program designed to encourage healthy, active lifestyles among American schoolchildren.
Why It Matters
Launched in 1966, the test once required students to run and complete exercises such as sit-ups, pull-ups or push-ups, along with a sit-and-reach flexibility assessment. It was overhauled in 2012 under the Obama administration to emphasize personal health goals rather than athletic performance.
Trump “wants to ensure America’s future generations are strong, healthy, and successful,” White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said in a statement, adding that the goal is to foster “a culture of strength and excellence for years to come.”
What To Know
In a White House ceremony Thursday afternoon, Trump signed an order reestablishing the President’s Council on Sports, Fitness and Nutrition and the fitness test. Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. will oversee the program, which will introduce a new Presidential Fitness Award.
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Butker, DeChambeau, Other Athletes Promote Test
The order also instructs the Council to partner with “professional athletes, sports organizations, and influential figures,” the White House said in a fact sheet.
Several prominent athletes joined Trump for the order’s signing, including professional golfer Bryson DeChambeau, Kansas City Chiefs kicker Harrison Butker and former New York Giants linebacker Lawrence Taylor.
Butker made news last year after he delivered a commencement speech at a Kansas college, where he said the majority of women graduating were more excited about marriage and children than having a career and that some Catholic leaders were “pushing dangerous gender ideologies onto the youth of America.”
What People Are Saying
President Donald Trump, at the order’s signing: “This council will play an important role in shaping these new policies and ensuring that we preserve the American athletic tradition for many generations to come. And in the years ahead we’ll have the chance to showcase our nation’s athletic dominance on the world stage.”
Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., at the order’s signing: “We need to re-instill that spirit of competition and that commitment to nutrition and physical fitness.”
What Happens Next
The President’s Council on Sports, Fitness and Nutrition has been tasked with developing criteria for a Presidential Fitness Award.
This article includes reporting by the Associated Press.
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