The other day I came across this video making the rounds on Face Book. This is a video about the old PE program at LaSeirra HS back in the early 60’s. It was part of an initiative by President Kennedy to improve the health and fitness of our youth. I guess even then there was some concern about our kids getting soft. I remember this program when I was in grade school. You did some calisthenics and if you did so many of each, you got a certificate, I think we also did this program at the Boys Club, as far as I can remember it was gone by the time I got to high school.
As I watched this video I was shocked by the level of fitness displayed by these high school kids. This could be a video of Marines getting ready to graduate boot camp? Imagine going to any HS across the U.S. today and trying to find a group like this? This isn’t their football or wrestling team, it’s just PE class! We need this program (or something like it) back in our schools now, especially with the more sedentary world of computers and video games. I think many schools have done away with PE all together. In my two son’s high school, if you were on a sports team, or in the band you were exempt from doing PE. BTW, there were a lot of fat kids in that school and a lot of discipline and drug issues.
The problem is before that could happen, you would need a major shift in the attitude of the parents. They would have to support a real PE program in their schools. My guess is that it would be like when the First Lady tried to improve the school lunches a few years ago, just whining, complaining and politics. when that happened I couldn’t believe how many people came out against getting better food for their own kids in school? Then again I could, as people are so bent on making everything a political issue nowadays, common sense and the greater good goes out the F’ing window. In fact one person commented on FB that this video of the La Seirra HS PE program had “Socialist Overtones” WTFO?, good health and fitness are now a socialist plot? Give me a break genius, the back bone of a free people is good health. A socialist government wants weak, unhealthy people, who are easier to control. I hope that one day this country will wake up and realize that the strength of it’s nation is based on a population of strong healthy people. No country has ever survived when it’s citizens are weak, sickly and unhealthy and it starts with our kids. Sometimes it seems like we are evolving backwards?
Take care and be safe.
Semper Fi
MGunz
Tags: Corps Strength
“WTFO?, good health and fitness are now a socialist plot? Give me a break genius, the back bone of a free people is good health. A socialist government wants weak, unhealthy people, who are easier to control.”
Hear, hear. Great write-up and great comments, as always.
I’d put money on the guy not liking the military-esque ranks they performed their workouts in.
On to the point, seeing this makes me wish I had this sort of athletic foundation when I was going through school.
Damn. Definitely our kids can benefit from the activity and discipline this program looks like it produces. Hell, I [probably would’ve hated doing it but] would definitely be in a better place had PE been something worthwhile. I don’t blame the program, but two things have overtaken the collective minds of public school programming – 1) making kids look qualified for getting into universities and 2) pleasing every single last parents’ sensitivities.
I will say though that Mrs. Obama had a good idea and I commend her for pushing activity and diet into children’s lives, but as far as better foods go, her approach was heavy handed and ill conceived. Applying calorie and food type standards won’t work because the body type and physiology of high school age kids are all over the place due to varying degrees of maturation. If I was to push a better foods program, it would focus on increasing fresh foods, cutting processed foods, and healthier cooking techniques. A grilled sirloin burger with lettuce, tomato, a thin slice of provolone and ketchup and light aioli on whole wheat will get you a lot further with kids then what many schools have implemented. It’ll cost more, but pretty much anything will cost more than processed food.
And therein lies the issue. Are school districts willing to spend the money and will kids still eat it when/if they’re allowed to go off campus once they can drive?
You nailed the issue on the head: The problem with Mrs. Obama’s school lunch program isn’t with the idea/intent of the program, instead it has to do with the top-down one-size-fits-all nature of it.
Different people have different needs when it comes to caloric intake; When he won 8 gold medals at the 2008 Olympics, Michael Phelps was consuming roughly 12,000 calories a day to maintain weight. Were most of us to eat a similar diet (assuming we could actually get, and keep, all of it down), we’d gain weight like crazy.
Mrs. Obama’s program didn’t adequately account for those who require higher-calorie diets, and instead assumed that everyone could subsist on equal portions of food. This obviously resulted in complaints from some students who legitimately are/were not getting enough to eat under these rules/guidelines/whatever the hell they are.
TLDR: It’s mostly an issue of “one size fits all” being a damned dirty lie.
But to some, any attempt by the government to promote this is overreach, socialist and whatnot and infringe on their freedom of eating or disposing of their body how they please. Which is somewhat funny as this makes them close, on some points, to SJWs who oppose such (high) societal standards…
Overweight, out of shape. Freedom! ‘Merica!
TANSTAAFL. MGunz, thanks for sharing this. You are exactly right.
However, as you and William S. point out it is almost impossible to get a program like this going in this day and age. The political far left and the far right would vehemently oppose even discussing it. Each for their own ingrained ideological reasons. None would want to pay for it.
Even more unfortunately, I suspect most Parent today would be ambivalent at best – considering the generally poor physical condition of a significant portion of the American public.
The paradox of freedom is that it is very difficult to influence people to do anything they aren’t already predisposed to do. Like exercise or adopting healthier eating habits. No matter how good it would be for them and the Nation. Look at how many are resistant to even vaccinating their children.
I think bringing something like this back to all schools in the country would be a great thing. I just don’t have any confidence that anyone or any group could make it happen. And that is truly sad.
TLB
I think the trick would be creating a pilot program in a single school, and then executing the concept very well for several years to serve as a case study.
Once the school has graduated a couple years worth of fit, happy kids (who just so happen to also be crushing the other schools at sports) others will take notice and it may become a trend with the right media support.
Absolutely. I’m glad at least someone else agrees, haha.
Those kids also probably had better overall nutrition in their lives too.
Yeah, you need to have a fairly low percentage of body fat to have visible six-pack abs….
Can’t find the truth teller workout & ratings on the Internet! I remember this workout from a couple years ago. 1 mile run, max pullups and 8 count body builders in 2 minutes. I recently bought the book and I am frustrated I can’t find this workout. I checked the corps strength site and could not find any contact info.
J,
Sorry, still going through some growing pains with the new website. Drop me an email at corpsstrength@gmail.com and I’ll send you the whole “Truth Teller” workout.
MGunz
People should be less concerned by “socialists” in gov’t (you are more likely to encounter incompetence than fellow travelers) and be more concerned about the companies selling soft drinks, french fries, pizza. I guess making a buck off selling junk food to your kids is good ol’ fashioned American enterprise.
and it’s not just schools, how many kids eat a home-made meal at home these days? Way too much Fast-food, take-out, processed food in our society.
Well the government should definitely do something about lazy kids and French fries and pizza, but they better not touch your guns. I had no idea this website was read by so many deep political thinkers. Freedom – how does it work?
Re the pegboard picture at the top (a much larger version of which can be easily had for < $100), take the normal climbing pegs and add a rubber keel roller, thick-grips, a round finials, etc. (i.e., increase the diameter of the gripped part of the peg from 1" to 3" or more). Life gets a lot more fun (depending on your definition of "fun," of course).
Anyone else out there old enough to remember we called formal exercise “doing JFK’s”?
Anyone old enough to actually remember a time in school they called “recess”?
Ya know that 15 minute period we got to just let off some energy then we had an actual hour of lunch where we would woof down lunch, maybe trade a ding dong or twinkie for home made cookies then race to get that small red rubber ball where we would try and drill each other in the ballsack to then laugh hysterically as that kid crumbled to the ground wanting to puke up his twinkie he just traded you??
I’d hate to be in school now. No kickball, no dodgeball, the monkey bars are gone…sheesh no wonder kids are so obese!
Well, that’s the problem: The feel-good flower-power folks have done their best to make exercise less fun, and as a result kids don’t want to exercise….
It’s all about incentives…
That’s some high level of fitness, most of the children would suffer to get in that kind of shape. The physical level required to do all those exercises is far more than the one of the regular infantry soldier.
Education isn’t just a matter of school or government. Cooking and Working out are something you should do by yourself.
“A socialist government wants weak, unhealthy people, who are easier to control.”
That is not necessarily true. Both National Socialist Germany and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics placed great emphasis on physical fitness in schools for various reasons, including feeding their militaries with fit recruits, and as evidence of their systems’ superiority over “soft, decadent, lazy” Western representative government.