The presidential fitness test: An exercise in humiliation?
Post Reports
The Washington Post
4.4 • 5.1K Ratings
🗓️ 20 August 2025
⏱️ 25 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
At the end of July, President Donald Trump signed an executive order reinstating the presidential fitness test. The test was administered in public schools around the country from 1950 to 2012, when it was ended by President Barack Obama.
After health columnist Gretchen Reynolds heard the news, she put out a call to Post readers asking about their memories of the presidential fitness test. Hundreds responded, many of them sharing vivid memories of humiliation and shame associated with the test.
Elahe Izadi speaks with Gretchen about the origins of the test, what this new iteration of the test might look like, and what experts say about whether the test actually combats things like obesity and inactivity in young people.
Today’s show was produced by Peter Bresnan. It was mixed by Sean Carter and edited by Ariel Plotnick. Thanks to Emily Codik and Teresa Tamkins.
Subscribe to The Washington Post here.
Transcript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | I remember it vividly. |
| 0:04.5 | I was in sixth grade gym class. |
| 0:06.8 | We all lined up on the basketball court and the dread sank in. |
| 0:11.8 | It was time to take the presidential fitness test. |
| 0:17.6 | We had to do push-ups, climb up a rope, run a mile, toe reaches, and pull-ups. |
| 0:24.7 | Pull-ups. I failed miserably. My scrawny 11-year-old arms could not pull me up if my life depended on it. |
| 0:32.3 | I felt like a failure. And this happened once every year. If you went to American public schools before 2012, |
| 0:40.5 | that's when the Obama administration retired the program. You probably also experienced the |
| 0:46.4 | presidential fitness challenge. For many students, this was just another day in gym class. |
| 0:51.9 | But it turns out, lots of people shared my feelings about it. |
| 0:55.8 | Every time they announced, well, oh, we're going to do the business test again, it was just, |
| 1:00.7 | you know, just feelings of dread. The post recently put out a call to readers asking them what |
| 1:08.1 | they remembered about the test. People responded by the hundreds, |
| 1:12.8 | and we called some of them back to ask them about their vivid memories. The boys did the push-ups, |
| 1:19.2 | and the girls had to hold themselves up. And I had no upper body strength, and it was just |
| 1:26.3 | absolutely demoralizing. All the girls I guess would have to do |
| 1:30.8 | that hang on the bar. You have to get up there and everyone is in a circle watching you. And I would get up there and just |
| 1:40.9 | immediately fall down like a rag doll. I could never do it. |
| 1:45.6 | And it was just deeply humiliating. |
| 1:49.8 | It was demoralizing and it was traumatic kind of because kids would make fun of you. |
| 1:55.2 | Because I was smaller than the other kids, I couldn't do things physically as well as they could. It always felt so |
| 2:03.8 | embarrassing to me to be the kid who couldn't even come close to what the other kids were doing. |
... |
Please login to see the full transcript.
Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from The Washington Post, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.
Generated transcripts are the property of The Washington Post and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.
Copyright © Tapesearch 2025.