Who remembers the Presidential Physical Fitness Program?
Whether you loved it or hated it, I bet you remember, once or
twice a year, when your P.E. teacher announced that everyone would be competing
for the award. We’d be doing situps, running the mile, reaching past our toes…my wife remembers doing wall-sits – I have no memory of that! No matter what the
regimen, we all had a common goal – to reach the pinnacle of human fitness in
order to be recognized by the President of the United States.
Now, I don’t know what you thought was going to happen, but
I imagined George Herbert Walker Bush and William Jefferson Clinton just PORING
over mile times and shuttle run results, checking off the best of the best of
the best. Perhaps I’d be honored in a ceremony, like at the end of Star Wars,
and Carrie Fisher or somebody would place a medal around my neck while I smiled
stupidly at Chewbacca. WHAT IF MY NAME WAS IN THE PAPER?
One year, I think I was in the 7th or 8th
grade, I busted my butt to earn that award. I met every goal the teacher put
before me, except one: I couldn’t stretch my fingertips beyond my feet. She sat
us all down with our legs stretched out before us and, one by one, she used a
ruler to gauge our flexibility. I watched in awe as my classmates succeeded one
after the other. I had run a seven minute mile and done 55 situps in a minute,
but could I stretch my fingertips four inches beyond my feet?
Suddenly, my mouth ran dry. As she came close, the kids who
had been gymnasts and swimmers were racking up eight inches, ten inches –
surely a playground baseball kid could manage four measly inches.
The time had come – it was my turn. I straightened my back
and LEANED. I pulled. I stretched. “Use your fingers to try and walk yourself
forward along the ground…that’s it! Keep going…keep going…”
What was actually seconds felt like hours to me. I felt like
I had endured some type of torture from the dark ages. Human bodies were not
meant to move this way, I was sure of it.
My teacher stood up straight and looked at the ruler. “One
inch. Try again tomorrow.” She clicked her pen, marked it down on her clipboard,
and moved on. That was it. I was devastated. THREE MORE INCHES? It might as
well have been three more feet.
I didn’t make it tomorrow. Or the next day. Or the next. Or
at all. The President would look at my results and scoff, drawing a thick, red
line through my name in PERMANENT INK. There would be no ceremony, Carrie
Fisher wouldn’t smile at me in admiration… I wouldn’t meet Chewbacca.
It’s a memory that (obviously) has stuck with me. If only I
had spent more time stretching, and increased my flexibility, I would have
achieved my goal. It’s one of many failures in my life that has taught me that
good results come from good preparation. I need to train and work for the goal
that I want to achieve.
Of all the activities that they put us through, of all the
fitness factors that were measured, there’s one thing that the teacher never
did.
She NEVER put us on scale.
When we were kids, the measure of fitness was never simply
our weight. It didn’t matter if we were perceived as too heavy or too thin; if
you can run the time, if you can do the work, you have a healthy body.
Today, we place too much weight (pun intended) on those
numbers. A “healthy weight” or a “healthy BMI” can be indicators of overall
health, and there is a correlation between the makeup of our bodies and our
overall fitness, to be sure, but the perceived relationship is backwards. The
scale can’t gauge fitness or health. It only gives you a single number
indicating your physical mass.
If I want a healthy body, I need to take care of it. I need
to exercise. I need to eat right. I need to lay off the bad stuff.
Do I sound like your middle school P.E. teacher yet?
Well, she was right. Yet somehow we’ve chained ourselves to
the number on the scale as the primary indicator of fitness.
Guess what? A healthy body is going to move that number in
the right direction, not the other way around. Simply gaining or losing weight
doesn’t make me healthy. It is entirely possible to be a “healthy weight,” and
be the least healthy person in the room. And you can certainly be a few pounds
over the “ideal” BMI and put the rest of us to athletic shame – just ask Tom
Brady, who at 6’4” and 225 lbs, is technically overweight on the traditional
BMI scale.
We need to move beyond those numbers if we want to be truly
healthy. Physical health is about strong bones and muscles, it’s about your
heart and your lungs…it’s not about the visibility of your six-pack or having
the perkiest butt on the beach. It’s about setting achievable goals and then
reaching them, exceeding them, and then setting new goals.
So let’s set a new goal together. Let’s forget about
meaningless numbers. Let’s forget about societal expectations. Let’s forget
about unrealistic beauty ideals. Instead, let’s decide why we want to live
healthy. Let’s work harder. Let’s set realistic health and fitness goals. Let’s
eat what’s good for us and leave out what isn’t. Let’s make a strong body a
priority. Let’s take care of the skin we’re in. And it will take care of us.
