The President's Council on Sports, Fitness and Nutrition (PCSFN) is an American government organization that aims to "promote, encourage and motivate Americans of all ages to become physically active and participate in sports". It is part of the

Office of Public Health and Science The Office of the Assistant Secretary for Health (OASH) is an operating agency of the United States Department of Health and Human Services and the managing personnel body for the United States Public Health Service. The office is under the directi ...

, an agency of the United States Department of Health and Human Services. Prior to June 2010, it was called the President's Council on Physical Fitness and Sports. The Council's work is informed by a Science Board, composed primarily of academic researchers and scholars. The first Science Board was appointed during the George W. Bush administration in 2003 with Charles B. "Chuck" Corbin, Ph.D., Arizona State University, serving as its inaugural Chair. In 2016, Dr. Corbin received a Lifetime Achievement Award from the PCSFN. The Science Board was active for several years, but eventually went dormant. It was reinstated on June 21, 2019, with strong urging from organizations such as the National Academy of Kinesiology. A newly formed Science Board was announced on January 22, 2020, with Bradley J. Cardinal, Ph.D., Oregon State University, appointed as Chair. During their 2 year term, the Science Board established the scientific basis of the National Youth Sports Strategy, including a wide variety of evidence-based documents and reports.

History

During the 1940s, the American Medical Association and the National Committee on Physical Fitness had a joint committee encouraging physical fitness. The President's Council on Youth Fitness was founded on July 16, 1956, to encourage American children. In 1963, President Kennedy changed the council's name to President's Council on Physical Fitness to reflect its role to serve all Americans. In 1966, President Lyndon B. Johnson created the Presidential Physical Fitness Award, the name of which was later changed to President's Challenge Youth Physical Fitness Awards Program. In 1968, the council's name was changed to President's Council on Physical Fitness and Sports to emphasize the importance of sports in life. In 1972, the Presidential Sports Award Program was created. In 1983, the United States Congress declared May as National Physical Fitness and Sports Month. In 1996, the Surgeon General's Report on Physical Activity and Health was released. In 1997, the Council released its report on Physical Activity and Sport in the Lives of Boys. In June 2010, President Barack Obama renamed the agency the President's Council on Fitness, Sports and Nutrition, with a new emphasis on nutrition as an element of fitness.

First Lady First lady is an unofficial title usually used for the wife, and occasionally used for the daughter or other female relative, of a non-monarchical A monarchy is a form of government in which a person, the monarch, is head of state fo ...

Michelle Obama Michelle LaVaughn Robinson Obama (born January 17, 1964) is an American attorney and author who served as first lady of the United States from 2009 to 2017. She was the first African-American woman to serve in this position. She is married t ...

announced the new commission's goal "to end the epidemic of childhood obesity in a generation" and also announced that the president had named, as the new co-chairs of the council, New Orleans Saints quarterback Drew Brees and former Olympic gymnast Dominique Dawes. On January 11, 2012, operators of the website for participants of the Challenge and Active Lifestyle programs learned that the site had been hacked, resulting in the release of personal information of the participants. The President's Challenge site displayed a notice that it was down for "Site Maintenance – We're taking a little breather." On January 20, 2012, the site was modified to explain the hacking. On January 27, 2012, The President's Challenge sent out emails to its participants saying that the website was functional as of January 24, 2012, and asked participants to reset their user passwords.

Past chairpersons

Bud Wilkinson Charles Burnham "Bud" Wilkinson (April 23, 1916 – February 9, 1994) was an American football player, coach, broadcaster, and politician. He served as the head football coach at the University of Oklahoma from 1947 to 1963, compiling a record of ...

(chairman) 1961–1963 *

Stan Musial Stanley Frank Musial (; born Stanislaw Franciszek Musial; November 21, 1920 – January 19, 2013), nicknamed "Stan the Man", was an American baseball outfielder and first baseman. Widely considered to be one of the greatest and most consis ...

Consultant 1964–1967 * Jim Lovell (chairman) 1969–1977 * Jerry Apodaca (chairman) 1978–1980 * George Allen (chairman) 1981–1988 * Dick Kazmaier (chairman) 1988–1989 *

Arnold Schwarzenegger Arnold Alois Schwarzenegger (born July 30, 1947) is an Austrian and American actor, film producer, businessman, retired professional bodybuilder and politician who served as the 38th governor of California between 2003 and 2011. ''Time'' ...

(chairman) 1990–1993 * Florence Griffith Joyner (co-chair) 1993–1998 * Tom McMillen (co-chair) 1993–1997 * Lee Haney (chairman) 1999-2002 * Lynn Swann (chairman) 2002–2005 * Denise Austin 2002–2009 * Drew Brees (co-chair) 2010 * Dominique Dawes (co-chair) 2010 * Lou Ferrigno 2018 * Misty May-Treanor (co-chair) 2019 * Mariano Rivera (co-chair) 2019 *

Herschel Walker Herschel Junior Walker (born March 3, 1962) is an American former football running back who played in the National Football League (NFL) for 12 seasons. He was also the Republican nominee in the 2022 United States Senate election in Georgia. ...

(co-chair) 2019

Awards

The Council publishes guidelines for awards that are given out. They are the Presidential Physical Fitness Award, the National Physical Fitness Award, and the Participant Physical Fitness Award. However, it has been announced that the Physical Fitness Test on which these awards are based will no longer be available after the 2012–2013 school year. Additionally, there is the Active Lifestyle Award for staying active and the Presidential Champions Award for raising one's amount of activity. The Champions awards ended on 30 June 2018. There is also a Community Leadership Award that is given out annually to 50 people or organizations for encouraging physical activity, fitness, and nutrition.

Standardized tests

The award was given to students who achieved the top fifteenth percentile cumulative scores across these events and were based on age/gender and were taken by all participants. Pull ups/flexed-arm hang was based on gender and was the only event where one was done by boys and the other by girls: * 50-yard dash * 600-yard run *

Standing broad jump The standing long jump, also known as the standing broad jump, is an athletics event. It was an Olympic event until 1912. It is one of three standing variants of track and field jumping events, which also include the standing high jump and st ...

* Pull-ups (boys) *

Flexed-arm hang A pull-up is an upper-body strength exercise. The pull-up is a closed-chain movement where the body is suspended by the hands, gripping a bar or other implement at a distance typically wider than shoulder-width, and pulled up. As this happens, t ...

(girls) * Sit-ups *

Shuttle run The multi-stage fitness test (MSFT), also known as the beep test, bleep test, PACER (Progressive Aerobic Cardiovascular Endurance Run), PACER test, FitnessGram PACER test, or the 20 m Shuttle Run Test (20 m SRT), is a running test used to estimate ...

Sit and reach Sit commonly refers to sitting. Sit, SIT or Sitting may also refer to: Places * Sit (island), Croatia * Sit, Bashagard, a village in Hormozgan Province, Iran * Sit, Gafr and Parmon, a village in Hormozgan Province, Iran * Sit, Minab, a village ...

References

External links