President Donald Trump signs executive orders alongside Secretary of Education Linda McMahon, wounded warriors and two campaign hats in the Oval Office on April 23, 2025. Trump signed an executive order July 31 reinstating the Presidential Fitness Test, which was retired under the Obama administration. (Official White House Photo by Molly Riley)
PHOENIX – As the sun set over La Paloma Park on Thursday night, Jenny Colon watched her youngest son play basketball with three other boys from the neighborhood. The temperature had finally dropped enough for the kids to run up and down the court, playing pick-up games and practicing shooting the ball. It surfaced mixed memories of her own experiences in school.
She was an athletic child, and she never felt the pressure to perform. Still, she remembered feeling stressed when she was pitted against other students. Colon, whose two sons are 11 and 16, was required to participate in the Presidential Fitness Test in school.
“But I think that bringing it back now is, I think we’re just, we’re more aware that not all kids are athletic,” she said, referring to the reinstatement of the test. “It’s like asking more fish to climb a tree, like different kids have different abilities.”
On July 31, President Donald Trump signed an executive order to reinstate the Presidential Fitness Test, renewing a debate about the negative effects that forced athletic competition can have on students’ mental health.
The announcement sparked a lot of debate. Arizona State Superintendent Tom Horne thinks it will benefit students’ health and education.
“If students are in good shape physically, they’re gonna be better students,” Horne said. “The ideal from Greece, which originated our ideas of philosophy, education and democracy, was a healthy mind and a healthy body. And I think it’s a great advantage to the students’ long run health that they exercise, and it’s also an advantage to their ability to study well.”
President Lyndon B. Johnson launched the Presidential Physical Fitness Award in 1966 to promote exercise for kids aged 10 to 17. This program had students complete a physical test, and those who scored above the 85th percentile received the award.
“For far too long, the physical and mental health of the American people has been neglected,” Trump wrote in the executive order. “Rates of obesity, chronic disease, inactivity, and poor nutrition are at crisis levels, particularly among our children.”
Students around the country participated in the Presidential Fitness Test until 2012, when President Barack Obama phased out the test in favor of the Presidential Youth Fitness Program. Since Obama’s decision, students’ exercise in school was left up to districts. The new program still prioritized physical activity and health, but removed the test aspect that had all students aiming to reach the same goal.
Lance Dunlop, a PE teacher at Rover Elementary and Wood Elementary in Tempe, said that he is glad that the program encourages students to exercise.
“I want kids to love PE and love exercise on their own time,” Dunlope said.
Brooklyn Merchant, a mom of three kids ranging from 2 to 8 years old, said she appreciated that the Presidential Fitness Test gave kids concrete goals, but she worries that expecting all students to be able to accomplish the same benchmarks doesn’t account for the wide range of exercise.
“It was interesting for me to kind of like effortlessly do really well,” Merchant said. “Particularly the flexibility. It was interesting to turn around and see people who were very healthy, maybe football players, for instance, who did not have that same flexibility because they didn’t have the same lifestyle as a dancer that I did. That didn’t mean they were unhealthy.”
Since the removal of the Presidential Fitness Test in 2012, many schools have used similar assessments, like FitnessGram, to keep track of students’ physical fitness.
According to Horne, it was up to school districts to decide the requirements for PE classes and if they wanted to use these programs. The FitnessGram test is very similar to the Presidential Fitness Test, both including running, pushups, situps and sit and reach tests.
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, physical activity can boost memory and attention, lower the risk of depression in children and improve overall health.
One of the main concerns is that the program could encourage students to compare themselves to others. Students are able to see who is succeeding and who is struggling. This could embarrass students who aren’t able to pass and hurt their self-esteem and body image, critics said. This was one of the reasons Obama ended the test in 2012.
Trump and the U.S. Department of Education have not released information about what the new version of the test will include and when it will be implemented in schools.
Colon, watching her son scamper on the court, said that prioritizing students’ health is important, but she worried that the test would encourage students to compare themselves to others.
“I think at least like my younger son, you know, being among his peers and they’re athletic and there is like this kind of pressure to perform,” Colon said. “I don’t think that that’s necessarily healthy.”
