Greg Beato: What Happened After JFK Told America to Take a Hike
[Greg Beato is contributing editor to Reason magazine.]
Fifty years ago this month, in the pages of Sports Illustrated, president-elect John F. Kennedy told the country that its “growing softness” and “increasing lack of fitness” were a “menace” to U.S. security. “Our struggles against aggressors throughout our history have been won on the playgrounds and corner lots and fields of America,” Kennedy exclaimed. But a 15-year research study showed that Austrian, Swiss, and Italian schoolchildren had outperformed their American counterparts in a series of strength and flexibility tests by a huge margin.
Perhaps envisioning an invasion of wiry Swiss tots against which we would have no defense except a vast stockpile of 20,000 nuclear warheads and 2.5 million tubby soldiers, sailors, and airmen, Kennedy vowed to make push-ups and jumping jacks a federal priority. “This is a national problem, and requires national action,” he wrote. “The federal government can make a substantial contribution toward improving the health and vigor of our citizens.”
It was the first time the federal government had taken such an avid interest in the abs of the body politic. Under President Kennedy’s watch, the Presidential Council on Youth Fitness stepped up its efforts considerably, creating radio, TV, and newspaper ads, even enlisting Superman and Snoopy to help spread its fitness message to America. Half a century later, our gross national flabbiness has only expanded. In August, Lt. General Mark Hertling told The New York Times that “the soldiers we’re getting in today’s Army are not in as good shape as they used to be.…This is not just an Army issue. This is a national issue.”...
Read entire article at Reason
Fifty years ago this month, in the pages of Sports Illustrated, president-elect John F. Kennedy told the country that its “growing softness” and “increasing lack of fitness” were a “menace” to U.S. security. “Our struggles against aggressors throughout our history have been won on the playgrounds and corner lots and fields of America,” Kennedy exclaimed. But a 15-year research study showed that Austrian, Swiss, and Italian schoolchildren had outperformed their American counterparts in a series of strength and flexibility tests by a huge margin.
Perhaps envisioning an invasion of wiry Swiss tots against which we would have no defense except a vast stockpile of 20,000 nuclear warheads and 2.5 million tubby soldiers, sailors, and airmen, Kennedy vowed to make push-ups and jumping jacks a federal priority. “This is a national problem, and requires national action,” he wrote. “The federal government can make a substantial contribution toward improving the health and vigor of our citizens.”
It was the first time the federal government had taken such an avid interest in the abs of the body politic. Under President Kennedy’s watch, the Presidential Council on Youth Fitness stepped up its efforts considerably, creating radio, TV, and newspaper ads, even enlisting Superman and Snoopy to help spread its fitness message to America. Half a century later, our gross national flabbiness has only expanded. In August, Lt. General Mark Hertling told The New York Times that “the soldiers we’re getting in today’s Army are not in as good shape as they used to be.…This is not just an Army issue. This is a national issue.”...