19) Presidential Fitness Test

July 26, 2025

19) Presidential Fitness Test

Presidential Fitness Test- Conformity Enforcement

What’s the Presidential Fitness Test?

The Presidential Fitness Test (PFT) launched in the 1950s under Eisenhower, and was meant to assess overall fitness in our youth, because our youth had performed poorly in juxtaposition to Swiss, Italian, and Austrian children. When this comparison was brought to Eisenhower’s attention he aimed to improve American scores and developed an American version of the preexisting Swiss test. Even today, Harvard still touts its utility for overall adult fitness.

When the test was converted from the Swiss predecessor, military training weighed heavily in the expectations.

In the version developed in 1957, fitness professionals ended up with pullups, situps, the standing broad jump, the shuttle run, the 50-yard dash, the softball throw, and the 600-yard run. (Edwards, 2015: Vox.com)

According to Harvard, the PFT’s aim was to “assess cardiovascular fitness, upper-body and core strength, endurance, flexibility, and agility.” The test underwent many revisions over time, but the core stayed the same.

It’s easy to see how the test that resulted mirrored a military expectation.

Pullups were great for soldiers to get themselves out of foxholes, but not for kids staying fit. Softball throws were good practice for throwing grenades — but what did that have to do with overall fitness? (Edwards, 2015: Vox.com)

The program persisted under several presidents, and even gained celebrity momentum from people like Arnold Schwartzenegger.

In 2013, the test was finally abolished.

Torture

It’s widely accepted that the test was sadistic and the focus on making a draft-ready population was a bad look at best. It was a grand time for the Cult of the Ego.

I always dreaded gym. Gym teachers loved to yell at me, and “push me for my own good.” There was a buffet of microaggressions from teachers and students alike.

I was fat. No matter WHY I was fat, I WAS fat, and I couldn’t change that.

I couldn’t just wake up in the morning and go “Ope! I have gym today, better not wear my fat or a skirt. Let me go get my sneakers.”

Yelling at me, degrading me, belittling me, comparing me, and hating me, didn’t make me lose weight. It cost me the ability to love myself, but that doesn’t weigh on anybody but me.

Gym clothes never fit right, and they only made my contrast against the other students more apparent. Getting changed on the single-board benches in locker rooms is HARD for the fat kid.

I could never keep up. I was always winded. I was told so many times that I just need to eat less, and be more active.

“See, it’s not that hard.”

Every single gym period was torture, but I absolutely dreaded the PFT.

I have never run a mile in my life. With Ehlers Danlos Syndrome, I have universal joint laxity (or looseness). Impacts like running just destroy my body. My ankles will lock up as my tarsals compress together. I lose range of motion in my ankles, and my knees slip out of joint in all directions depending on the angle of each impact. My hips inflame. My lungs scream out for oxygen and I can’t breathe.

“Come on! Pick up the pace.”

“This isn’t a Sunday stroll Ladies, Let’s go!”

“Everybody else is back inside, and you still have a lap to go? Do you think that’s fair? Do you think it’s ok that everyone has to wait on you because you won’t just run? Let’s MOVE IT! Why are you crying? You don’t have to wait on someone who can’t keep up.”

“Hubba, hubba, hubba, hubba.”

“Look, she’s going to try to run! Watch her jiggle.”

Gales of laughter, side eyes, and snickers.

Dragging my body back through the doors then being told to climb a rope.

I’ve never been able to climb a rope. I have had rope burns cut into my hands from gripping so hard. I just couldn’t support my weight.

I was fat.

I can’t do shuttle runs without spraining an ankle. I got told I was faking it.

Sit ups hurt so bad. They drive my tailbone into the floor, and I can’t imagine how anybody is ok with how that feels. Crunches, sure, fine, but not sit ups. For sit ups I had to pair with another kid who was supposed to anchor my toes, and whose toes I was supposed to anchor. They didn’t want to touch me, and they didn’t want me to touch them. It was always a “thing.” Maybe they thought I was contagious.

Push ups were just as bad.

Pull ups pulled my shoulders out of socket, while they yelled at me.

This assessment put my weight on display. It counted it, squeezing it between calipers. My fat was pulled out from under my shirt in front of other kids and measured.

The sit and reach was my oasis. The one line I would stand in, and not be counted as lacking. It was the only test that didn’t hurt. I actually really liked stretching. I would bottom out the test stretching way beyond my peers.

Instead of any behavior that indicated that I measured up, everyone would react with utter shock and surprise every year when I finally reached the test I could pass. Nobody ever questioned what might be going on in a body that can’t run a mile, but is very stretchy.

This test COULD have been used as a screener for EDS, but it was never meant to improve our health. It was meant to enforce conformity.

I’m Fat- by Protyus A. Gendher

I’m Fat 
I know, I know, I’m fat, and I always have been 
As a kid, not a single race that I’d win 
I took up too much space, which I guess left no room for friends 
The bigger you are, the less your worth, repeated over and over again 

How dare I consume 
The food 
Just like you 

Yes, I’m fat, and no matter what I do 
No matter how many pounds, or pieces of myself I lose 
No matter the lifestyle changes, never consuming carbs or booze 
I’ll always be fat. That fact is just the truth. 
Of course, my weight’s been up and down 
350 at my heaviest, 280 right now 
Even when I was 200, I carried these rolls around 
Somehow being fat pervades that loss of pounds 

I'm fat so it doesn’t really matter that I’m in pain 
Because it’s all my fault, at least that’s what the doctors say 
Unlike cancer weight is tethered to blame 
A constant reminder that you and I are not the same 

I’m fat and it’s my fault. It doesn’t matter that I try 
Or that it’s been a decade since I had carbs in my life 
Or that there are no restaurants that can get the food right 
So, I cook whole food from scratch, all day and every night 
No matter what I give up, or make myself live without 
My body is a curse, leaving no room for doubt 
I continue to be fat, no matter what goes in my mouth 
The insults of my youth are still just as loud 

And I have an active lifestyle, always on the go 
I work out two times a day, most days even more 
I don’t use being tired as an excuse to not do chores 
But no matter how much I move, I’m the same size as before 

So, if it’s not the result of the choices that I make 
And I’ll never erase enough of me to stop being a mistake 
Then it must be something closer to my essence that’s to blame 
I’ll never be good enough. 
This is how I’m made.