Getting an F For Flabby

By Anastasia Toufexis

It promises to be this spring's hot number for teens and tots: a foam-padded T shirt that instantly transforms the wearer into an incredible hulk. Already, 40,000 of the Power-Ts (at a hefty $19.95 each) have been snapped up for children eager to flaunt fake pecs.

Alas, too many need to do so, for few can boast any real brawn. "It's the best-kept secret in America today -- the lack of youth fitness," declares former Pro Football Coach George Allen, chairman of the President's Council on Physical Fitness and Sports. "It's a disgrace." The alarm comes as a shock to most parents. Nine out of ten believe their own youngsters are physical marvels, a Louis Harris poll reported for Children magazine. In truth, 40% of boys and 70% of girls cannot do more than a single pull-up, according to a survey of 19,000 six-to-17-year-olds released last year by the President's council; a third of school-age boys and 50% of girls cannot run a mile in less than ten minutes. Changes in testing make comparisons difficult, but fitness experts generally agree that athletic ability has steadily sagged over the past 20 years. "Kids have no endurance, no strength and very little flexibility," says Allen gloomily.

Other studies echo the litany of laxity: in the past two decades the prevalence of obesity increased from 18% to 27% among children ages six to eleven and from 16% to 22% among those ages twelve to 17; 40% of youngsters ages five to eight have elevated blood-pressure or blood-cholesterol levels or do not exercise at all; any of these factors probably increases their risk of developing heart disease. Teens are cutting back on tobacco, but 18% of senior high school boys and 21% of senior girls still smoke one or more cigarettes every day. Warns Dr. Kenneth Cooper, founder of Dallas' Aerobics Center: "What's happening to our kids now will reap adverse effects in ten to 15 years."

Physical education, an integral part of school curriculums since World War II, is now considered expendable under tight budgets. Currently, 17 states have mandatory phys ed. Only a third of all students take such classes daily; many get as little as one hour a week. Where athletic programs exist, they often emphasize team sports rather than individual conditioning. "Baseball has become a cult," explains Dr. Paul Dyment, head of the American Academy of Pediatrics sports committee, "but it's a game of skill, not fitness."

In many communities the old ritual of playing outdoors after school has largely disappeared. In urban families in which both parents work, youngsters are often told to stay safely indoors. Then, too, there is the lure of computer games and television. Youngsters spend on average 24 hours a week before the flickering tube, all too frequently with fattening snack readily at hand. Some children may simply be sprouts of couch-potato parents, but even when elders set a sprightly example, it is not always enough. Aerobics Advocate Cooper, who skis and runs, most often finds his 16-year-old son Tyler sprawled before the TV set. Acknowledges High School Sophomore Monette Powell, 16, of Woodland, Calif.: "A lot of students don't like to exercise because it's too strenuous. They don't have the energy."

Some efforts are being made to get children to shape up and eat right. The largest impact should come this fall; the federal school lunch program, which feeds 24 million students each day, is revising menus to reduce fat, sugar and salt. On local levels, some undertakings are informal. For example, the Sports Training Institute in New York City is setting up exercise pep talks by such legendary athletes as John Havlicek and Arthur Ashe. Other attempts are more structured. Dayton is experimenting with Gamefield Fitness Systems at 45 of the city's schools. Designed by the National Fitness Campaign and costing $7,800 each, the fields feature 16 activity stations for leg stretches, chin- ups and the like.

Florida has radically revised its phys-ed program to stress individual accomplishment. Every term, high school students must now take some physical activity -- golf, tennis, aerobics, weight training -- and they must pass a personal-fitness course to graduate. This month ten Florida high schools began offering Shape Up, one of several privately developed programs that are being adopted by educational systems around the nation. Students take six fitness tests and keep a food-and-drink diary for three days. The information is fed into a computer, which prints out an individual 20-page dossier, complete with sketches of where body fat is deposited plus diet and exercise recommendations. To keep participants motivated, Shape Up, which is funded by All American Gourmet, dishes out insignia T shirts, shorts and headbands.

Other companies are also helping pull the weight. Fitnessgram, a program sponsored by Campbell Soup Co., reaches 2.3 million students in 50 states and abroad. Youngsters' performances on six exercises are computer-analyzed, a bar chart ranks scores against the national mean, and advice is given on how to improve. Like most report cards, the Fitnessgram is sent home. What to do then is left up to the parents and child. Many take the results seriously. Dissatisfied with her score, Laura Miller, 12, started jogging with her mother more frequently. "I wanted to train for the next Fitnessgram," says Laura, a seventh-grader at Jefferson Middle School in Olympia, Wash.

Some campaigns aim merely to educate. For five-to-eight-year-olds, I'm a Fit Kid uses Hallmark's popular Rainbow Brite character and a coloring-book format to lay out a simple daily-workout plan. About 1.5 million copies of the book have been distributed through family physicians and educators. By far the most comprehensive teaching effort is Know Your Body. Devised for kindergarten through junior high by the American Health Foundation, it uses workbooks, skits and rhymes to handle such topics as choosing "heart- healthy" foods and resisting the bad habits of peers. In addition, youngsters get individual "health passports" on which they can record annual figures for height, weight, blood pressure and blood cholesterol. A surprisingly high cholesterol reading for Houston Sixth-Grader David Hawkins triggered a whole new way of eating for his family. Meals once heavy with beef and fried foods are now dominated by pasta and vegetables. "It's pretty gross," says David, 12, "but I guess if I don't follow it, I'll be sorry when I'm 40."

Programs like the one David is in are beginning to demonstrate gains, but many more of them will be needed if the nation's youth is to lose its flaccid profile. Meanwhile, health experts read with awe and admiration about China and West Germany, where strenuous exercise programs for children are the norm. American lassitude is proving difficult to overcome. "It isn't like being in the locker room with 45 players and you go through that door and get immediate results," says George Allen, after five years of being coach to the nation. "It's very difficult to motivate 225 million Americans."

With reporting by Beth Austin/Chicago and Charles Pelton/San Francisco