An executive order signed July 31 by President Donald Trump will reestablish the Presidential Fitness Test in elementary and high schools everywhere. However, the return of the program is a familiar experience for Ball State students, many of whom were the last generation to run PACER laps and be tested on the number of push-ups they could do in gym class. Now, with Ball State faculty also weighing in, the national debate over fitness and health is hitting closer to home.
The test, initiated in 1956 by President Dwight Eisenhower and formally implemented in American school systems in 1966 by President Lyndon Johnson, will be revived in the physical education curriculum after being revoked in 2012 by President Barack Obama's administration.
The first version of the test, designed in the 1940s by Hans Kraus and Sonja Weber, was originally intended to measure fitness and athleticism, with a focus on flexibility and core strength, according to an August 2025 article from National Public Radio (NPR). Initially titled the Kraus-Weber test, it was later used to test thousands of students in the U.S. and several European countries.
However, researchers found that a significant number of U.S. schoolchildren, 58 percent, failed at least one part of the test, compared to 8.7 percent in the European countries.
In 1956, President Eisenhower then founded the President's Council on Youth Fitness, and a year later, a national fitness test was created within the council. About a decade after that, the test was formalized and introduced in American physical education classes, consisting of a variety of exercises, such as the shuttle run and pull-ups. It was assigned to students aged six to 17 twice per school year to measure their fitness and athletic levels against national standards, specifically to determine if students fell at, above or below the 85th percentile. Those who scored at or above the 85th percentile also earned a Presidential Physical Fitness Award.
Freshman Colin Walrond, a swimmer on Ball State's Division I swim team, voiced his thoughts on these standards.
"I don't think [students] should be held against national standards. I think the [physical education] P.E. teachers should be looking more at their effort levels. If somebody is genuinely trying but falls below the national standard, they're still trying their best; not everybody is physically fit in the same way," he said.
In 2013, the test was officially removed from schools and replaced by a voluntary program called the Presidential Youth Fitness Program, which focused more on the value of an overall healthy, day-to-day lifestyle rather than athleticism. However, a component of the Presidential Fitness Test, the FitnessGram, was still retained in some schools' physical education curricula across the U.S. after the test was discontinued. It also included a change of seeing how long students could keep a run pace rather than performing the mile run, which was later called the PACER test, according to a November 2014 article from NPR.
Some of the reasons the Presidential Fitness Test was removed and replaced were due to criticism of its negative impact on students' mental health and critics questioning the effectiveness of the test, according to NPR.
Andrea McMurtry, a current kinesiology professor at Ball State University and former physical education instructor at Fisher's Junior High, taught while the test was instituted in schools in 2001.
"I think before you would perform this test, you would want to make sure that students had been introduced to these skills previously and had opportunities to practice them so that they were comfortable with how to do these exercises," she said.
Other concerns child development and fitness experts had regarding the test included how the emphasis on scoring could deter children from pursuing fitness and athleticism, according to a July 2025 article from The New York Times, and that not all children are the same size or at the same developmental stage.
McMurtry discussed how many students from her classes were embarrassed to perform the test exercises in front of their classmates, which could risk having an adverse effect on their self-esteem.
"You would want to make sure that students were not asked to perform the test in front of others all on their own, being watched by the entire class," McMurtry stated. "I think it's just important to remember that movement is supposed to be fun, but people don't enjoy moving if it's too hard for them."
Data from the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) and Prevention shows how obesity rates in children ages two to 19 still continued to increase even when the test was in the curriculum, with a 5.1 percent increase rate in 1971 and a 16.9 percent increase rate in 2012. In 2020, it rose to 19.7 percent, according to a CDC fact sheet on childhood obesity.
According to the White House Fact Sheet on the Reestablishment of the Presidential Fitness Test, the primary objectives through the reimplementation of the test are to uphold a strong and vital America, to make America active again and to reinstate fitness and health for the country's youth.
The statement also reads that obesity, chronic illness, poor nutrition and activity levels are at crisis rates amongst the youth and that these crisis levels "weaken our economy, military readiness, academic performance and national morale."
The revitalization of the test will still reward those who excel in physical education, and criteria will be developed for a Presidential Fitness Award. However, it is unclear whether those criteria will include holding students' scores against national standards. It has also not yet been determined whether the test will consist of the same exercises as the previous one.
When it comes to the idea of whether or not fitness is a political idea, Ball State political science professor Darren Wheeler said that it doesn't necessarily have to be.
"I don't think [fitness] needs to be political, I guess you could politicize it, such as vaccines, but everyone should [be] encouraged to engage in healthy behaviors such as exercise and medical screening. Those are things everyone on the blue and red teams should be able to agree on."
According to the CDC's Youth Risk Behavior Survey Data Summary & Trends Report for 2013-2023, trends for both male and female students of meeting aerobic and muscle-strengthening guidelines decreased from 2013 to 2023, with males' rates at a seven percent decrease and females at four percent. Sleep behaviors and healthy dietary habits have also been at a decreasing rate, according to the report.
In an August 2025 interview with Wish TV, McMurtry stated, "It's an awesome test to see if students are at elite levels of fitness, but a lot of our students are not there anymore, and so we just have to be really cautious as we look at this test, if we're testing something that students are even capable of doing anymore."
Ball State students and faculty who are familiar with the Presidential Fitness Test -- whether from taking it, administering it or both -- are curious about what the new version will look like. After a 13-year absence from American physical education programs, its return has sparked wide-ranging opinions across the nation. Supporters see it as a way to encourage physical activity, reduce obesity and prevent chronic illness. Critics, however, question whether the test is the best way to measure students' fitness levels.