Restored Presidential Fitness Test to ‘help build a stronger, healthier future’ for U.S. youth 

President Donald Trump and Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy restored the Presidential Fitness Test last week and launched “Get Kids Active,” a program this summer to prep kids for the test that will reappear in school curricula this year. 

HHS is partnering with the Boys & Girls Club of America, World Wrestling Entertainment and broader communities to help prepare for the test. The test officially launched June 29 in Atlantic City, New Jersey, as Kennedy joined students to complete Presidential Fitness workouts and learn about the importance of building healthy habits, including proper nutrition. Rep. Jeff Van Drew, R-New Jersey, joined Kennedy at the event. Celebrities including Cody Rhodes and Byron Saxton also attended.

“Too many young people are spending less time moving and building healthy habits,” Van Drew said in a press release. “A strong America depends on raising a healthy next generation. Bringing back the Presidential Fitness Test will give students a positive goal to work toward and make physical activity a bigger part of their everyday lives.”

The test includes benchmarks based on age and sex for core strength, cardio and upper-body goals that participants must reach. There are two award levels: National, which is described as “solid achievement,” and Presidential, which is “top tier.” No matter what level a participant achieves, every participant who competes earns a signed certificate from Trump. 

Trump appointed the President’s Council on Sports, Fitness and Nutrition last July “to engage, educate and empower all Americans to lead healthier, more fulfilling lives through regular physical activity, good nutrition, and mental well-being,” according to its website. The council includes male and female athletes from different sports, including Kansas City Chiefs kicker Harrison Butker, professional golfer Bryson DeChambeau and WWE Chief Content Officer Paul “Triple H” Levesque, among others.

One of the council’s first actions was reinstituting the Presidential Fitness Test, a physical test of strength started by President John F. Kennedy, RFK Jr.’s uncle, in the 1960s. Its purpose was to encourage students to build healthy habits not only for their physical activity but also for their mental well-being.

In his 1960 essay, The Soft American, Kennedy wrote about the decline in American well-being, saying this physical deterioration would lead to the weakening of the nation. This concern led him to establish the fitness test.

“Of course, physical tests are not infallible,” Kennedy wrote. “But the harsh fact of the matter is that there is also an increasingly large number of young Americans who are neglecting their bodies – whose physical fitness is not what it should be – who are getting soft. And such softness on the part of individual citizens can help to strip and destroy the vitality of a nation.”

The Obama administration removed the test from schools, but Trump’s plans to reinstitute the test date back to why it was implemented in the 1960s – nearly one in five children is overweight or obese, and 77% of young Americans are considered ineligible for military service for reasons including poor health and low physical fitness.

(Image credit: X/ HHS)