Soviets Outdo U.S. in Youth Fitness, George Allen Says
Former Rams and Redskins football coach George Allen said today that Soviet youngsters are in better physical condition than their American counterparts.
Allen, chairman of President Reagan’s Council on Physical Fitness and Sports, made the observation at a news conference after watching Soviet schoolchildren in training exercises.
“I have yet to see a Soviet youngster who is very overweight,” Allen said. “They’re all in good shape, the way I like my (football) players to be--very little body fat.”
A recent study, he said, showed that the average American boy or girl watches television or listens to the radio for more than seven hours a day--until as late as 3 a.m.--and presumably snacks on “popcorn or some other junk food.”
In the Soviet Union, he said, TV broadcasting stops well before midnight, and he thinks that this is a healthy thing.
Besides, he said, nearly two-thirds of American schools no longer have classes in physical education. He said that in California, “Proposition 13 practically removed physical education from the school system.”
“In my state,” he went on, “kids wait 20 minutes for a bus when they could walk to school in 15 minutes.”
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