NEWTON — U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said Monday schools discourage students from physical activity and are poisoning them with unhealthy food — issues he said federal and state policies are working to address with the reinstatement of the Presidential Physical Fitness Test.

Kennedy visited the Newton YMCA with U.S. Rep. Mariannette Miller-Meeks and other officials to conduct a roundtable discussing the importance of youth activity and reinstating the Presidential Physical Fitness Test. The department has partnered with YMCA, as well as Boys & Girls Clubs of America, to implement the fitness test through their summer programming before schools introduce it this fall, Kennedy said.

Newton’s YMCA provides a good example of how public-private partnerships between it, schools and the broader community can bring success, Miller-Meeks said. Children from the community completed sit-ups, push-ups, laps and more during the event to the encouragement of officials and staff.

“It really is this community effort, public-private partnership that’s meeting the needs of both the community, but especially the children,” Miller-Meeks said.

Kennedy announced the relaunch of the fitness test, which provides benchmarks for core, cardio and upper body fitness delineated by age and gender, in late June, and told the children at the YMCA the program was started by John F. Kennedy, his uncle, and discontinued during President Barack Obama’s administration. This was a mistake, he said, one that has led to physical and mental health crises in the U.S.

According to the National Fitness Foundation, the official charity of the President’s Council on Sports, Fitness & Nutrition, the Presidential Youth Fitness Test was established in 1966 and changed in 2012 to the Presidential Youth Fitness Program, which focused more on health and education. While some “slight changes” have been made, Kennedy said the program holds the same intentions as its original form — “to get all of our kids as active as possible.”

“This administration is about personal choice and about informed choice in every area of healthcare, but right now our schools and a lot of our public institutions are doing things that actively, I think, discourage children from getting outside, from getting physical activity,” Kennedy said.

Limits on screen time and cell phone use in the classroom are aimed at helping students become more active and healthier, Kennedy said. He praised the Newton Community School District for its “bell-to-bell” ban on cellphone usage, which he said has led to “test scores going up, and disciplinary problems going down, and psychiatric referrals going down.”

A state law was passed in 2025 requiring cell phone restrictions during instructional time, leading to the Newton policy.

According to a June article from Newton Daily News, Newton High School saw close to 570 electronic devices violations in the 2025-2026 school year, a high number as acknowledged by the school’s principal but not representative of separate students committing each violation. Berg Middle School in the district saw a 80-violation drop during the school year to 95.

The HHS secretary brought up the food being consumed by students in school, saying the U.S. has been “mass poisoning generations of American kids” which has led to the U.S. housing the least healthy children in the world.

Kennedy did not address whether states are prepared to implement the presidential fitness test, though according to a study from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, “states are not currently positioned to support standardized, large-scale fitness testing” like that of the reestablished program. The report stated that in order for the test to have a meaningful impact in increasing physical activity and recording student health outcomes, state policy and school infrastructure changes would be necessary.

While schools and policy previously were focused more on academics, sports and competitions within them, Miller-Meeks said the reinstatement of the presidential fitness test is bringing “the option for physical activity back into the system.” Schools will still have their choice as to how to implement testing, she said, and students will become physically and mentally healthier as a result, as physical activity raises endorphin levels.

“The Presidential Fitness Test isn’t about competition or elite athletes or Olympians,” Miller-Meeks said. “It’s just emphasizing that activity, and physical activity and outdoor activity, is an option for parents, and starting that in the Y or in the school system helps to make that front-of-mind for parents.”