The people with whom I went to high school would be floored to learn that, in my 71 years, I’ve run two New York City Marathons and more 10K and 5K races than I can remember.
They would be floored because I was not – shall we say – physically fit when I was a teenager.
I was heavy. That’s the kind word. There are lots of reasons why. But as much as my heart saw myself as athletic, my body never cooperated.
When I went off to college and then after I graduated, I saw the advantages of working out. One day, on a beach vacation to Rhode Island, I started running. I did that on and off into my late 60s. When I tore my meniscus hiking and developed arthritis, I switched to a stationary bike – although I am thinking about making my first run as a 70-year-old in the next few weeks.
The reason I mention all this is that there is nothing about what one of the women instructors on my Peleton calls my “fitness journey” that has anything to do with having taken physical education classes in school.
And so when Trump, in one of his efforts to bring back the tried-and-truly-useless of the past, declared last week that he wants the Presidential Fitness Test returned to the nation’s schools, it sounds about right.
He hasn’t the slightest clue what it would take to help our nation’s kids live healthier lives.
The Presidential Fitness Test, for those who forgot, was this four-part event that your whole gym class did. It consisted of sit-ups, squat thrusts, straddling some lines and running a lap around the school track.
The point supposedly was to show how fit you were compared not only to your classmates, but to other kids around the country.
The test was one of the stupid things about physical education in elementary and secondary schools.
Gym classes are mandatory because, supposedly, they instill the notion that kids should be fit.
But what they do is completely ridiculous.
For kids who are would-be athletes, wanting to compete in interscholastic sports, they’re 45-50 minutes of beating their chest and showing how strong, fast or whatever they are.
But for kids who need help in getting healthy, they’re a waste of time at best and, often, a chance to be humiliated or bullied.
There is no effort – none – to help kids in need find a program that will help them improve their physical well-being.
The test that Trump wants to reinstitute is about competition and superiority. He panders to bullies because he is one – and this gives them another chance to show off.
Most kids don’t need any more of that. They need to be encouraged to do healthy things. They need someone to ask them what kinds of things they’re comfortable with doing. They need to start slowly and build a love of physical activity as a way to get in touch with themselves and the world around them.
I’ve run races in my home of New York, in Florida and California and even London. Not once did I think about something that happened in a gym class that was about conforming to the rules and competing against the school jocks.
Not once was I made to feel useless, even though I came nowhere close to winning a race. As opposed to when I couldn’t do a forward roll, swing off the rings or wrestle a state champion almost 100 pounds lighter than me,
And yet, I’m willing to wager that I’m in a better place physically than 90% of the people in my gym class because I enjoy exercising.
President Barack Obama got rid of the Presidential Fitness Test because it was a complete waste of time and unhelpful.
Just like Trump.
SUBJECTISM 