Getting the Flab Out : * Big Percentage of County Youngsters Make a Poor Showing on Physical Fitness Test

Just as the fog would lift by morning in the Camelot described in Alan J. Lerner’s lyrics, the flabbiness would disappear from the lives of America’s youth in the Camelot of the Kennedy Administration. But three decades after the late President issued his call to fitness, youngsters in Orange County, the state and across the nation still are woefully out of shape.

Sputnik somehow inspired progress in science and technology, but today, the national fitness goal for youth still has a long way to go. Money for physical fitness programs, like everything else competing for scarce educational dollars, is in short supply. But it’s also a question of fitness and resolve.

The bad news from Orange County is that just 19% of the county’s fifth-graders were found to be in shape based on four exercises students performed as part of the California Assessment Program’s 1989-90 fitness test. They were: situps, pullups, a “sit-and-reach” exercise, and a one-mile run/walk. Results from grades seven and nine were better but still not great. For example, only 26% of county seventh-graders met the overall fitness standard. Overall, Orange County students fared slightly better than their counterparts elsewhere in the state. The test, given last spring to nearly 100,000 youngsters in grades five, seven and nine, show that only 17% of fifth-graders, 21% of seventh-graders and 26% of ninth-graders were able to meet minimum standards.

Ironically, Orange County is very much a part of the culture of fitness that California seems to represent for the entire nation. But real fitness begins early, and doesn’t come by accident. It results from exercise, proper sleeping habits, diet and general promotion of health.

One of Supt. of Public Instruction Bill Honig’s many ambitions for the state’s public education system has been to improve the health of students through nutrition and fitness. But the last two years of tests are discouraging for the state and county.

For evidence that efforts to promote fitness in young people can work, look to Tustin Memorial Elementary School. None of the fifth-graders at the school was found physically fit in 1989, but after a new physical education program was started, 31% of students passed. Parent education is important, as San Clemente’s Las Palmas Elementary School has found. There, 29% of fifth-graders were judged physically fit after none passed the test in 1989. So good effort can bring good results.