President Donald Trump signed a bill on May 5th to reinstate the Presidential Fitness Test into 161 schools on military installations.

The president said in a statement that “…we reaffirm our commitment to promoting healthy lifestyles, expanding access to athletic opportunities, and ensuring every American has the chance to compete and succeed.”

Though as of right now the test is only mandatory in those 161 schools, the policy is being pushed to schools all over the United States.

For this school year, the Del Val athletics department decided that the test is not coming back.

“I haven’t heard any talk of it coming back at all,” Freshman gym teacher, Carla Given, said. “At one point in time, it was here, and with covid, it ran its course, and we couldn’t really get back into it.”

Though there are no plans of putting this into effect, the test is still worth discussing due to the nature of the requirements.

The targets for the test vary greatly among boys and girls, with boys having significantly more strenuous or larger quantities of reps to hit the goal.

The issue lies not in the fact that the standards are different for different genders; rather if what the test is measuring is relevant to normal, everyday people.

“Through the years of teaching, I’ve had students who really struggled doing the test that were some of the best students I had and vice versa,” Given said. “I had kids who nailed the test and weren’t the greatest students.”

The push in physical fitness to kids is by no means a bad thing. 1 in 5 American children struggle with obesity, 11% of kids have anxiety and 6.3% of kids are addicted to their cellphones. Studies have shown exercise can help lower obesity rates, lessen anxiety and exercise is a way kids can get off their phones and outside.

Physical education is an important lesson to teach kids of all ages. Kids deserve to know how to keep their bodies healthy. The reason people are not rushing back into the Presidential Fitness Test, is because the test focuses too much on specific strengths one might only use in specific circumstances, rather than making sure that young adults have the strength they would need to succeed every day.

Fitness and exercise are great ways to practice good health, but they cannot be measured by one generalized test. Being able to do a specific series of intense exercises cannot perfectly dertermine someone’s healthy and can hurts more people than it helps.