Thoughts on The President's Challenge

Many of us remember the President's National Physical Fitness Test administered by the school gym teacher. This program was started fifty years ago in response to the nation's over-all fitness level (or lack thereof) after WWII. President Eisenhower established the President's Council on Phyiscal Fitness and Sports. President Bush expanded the program significantly to include adult and senior-level programs.

Well today I logged onto the President's Challenge web-site to record my fitness-related activities. Happily I discovered that I'd earned another PERFORMANCE GOLD! I found a neat table on my on-line web-page/log which read:

"Awards earned by John Lesko ...
Award Start Date End Date
President's Champions - Bronze 03-12-2004 04-25-2004 .
President's Champions - Silver 04-25-2004 06-10-2004 .
President's Champions - Gold 06-10-2004 09-02-2004 .

Performance - Bronze 09-02-2004 10-31-2004 .
Performance - Silver 10-31-2004 01-25-2005 .
Performance - Gold 01-25-2005 05-04-2005 .

Performance - Bronze 05-04-2005 07-22-2005 .
Performance - Silver 07-22-2005 10-26-2005 .
Performance - Gold 10-26-2005 03-02-2006 ."

Of course there was also some links that enabled me to order a certificate for this accomplishment. And another set of links allows folks to purchase tee-shirts and other promotional material. These are reasonably priced. As a government-sponsored program this is not a money-making operation but rather a self-supporting one with opportunities for corporate buy-in and community involvement. All in all a pretty cool program. [Details found at www.presidentschallenge.org]

Now I'm faced with either continuing on or withdrawaling from this web-site. I don't intend to quiet exercising. Keeping a fitness log has become a daily ritual / habit.

There are a number of features on the President's Challenge site that allow for you to compare your performance against others. You can select your age, your group (if you belong to one), your state, the nation, etc. and have the server calculate some simple bar graphs that show where you stand in comparison to others. If only there were an interactive bulletin board or discussion forum. [But I digress.]

Over the years I've initiated with Julie Whitt the formation of several BFL-related groups using the President's Challenge web-site as a tool. We first formed the "BFL Test Pilots." Then came the "BFL Cadets" and "BFL Top Guns." Interest in these groups waxed and waned with the amount of 'publicity' or 'advertising' we did on the BFL Guestbook. During the Olympic-seasons I'd post our metal count. New folks would join. 'Older' participants would either stop visiting -- hopefully opting to record their workouts elsewhere -- or they'd stop exercising. I think there's something to that old adage: "You can lead a horse to water ... " I guess the bottom line was that we did our best to keep folks involved.

Perhaps it is time to re-double our efforts as a nation to become fit versus fat. In the newspapers of late have been stories from the United States' Governors' conference. One story has been on the various state-level initiatives to get our children moving again and to combat obesity in the US. Bill Phillips has launched his new "Transformation Talk" radio show. The TV-news shows keep reminding us of how Americans are overweight, out-of-shape, and warn of the resultant medical costs that are soon to hit us with Baby Boomers coming into retirement age. This may be truly a matter of national security.