How Physically Fit are Piedmont's Kids?

The good news: Piedmont Unified School District students are more physically fit than their counterparts in many other districts, according to 2010-2011 state testing results released Wednesday.

The bad news: Local test results were down noticeably from the previous year. Flexibility and body composition are weak spots. Girls showed a marked decline in fitness scores as they got older.

The oddities: Girls outperformed boys at younger ages, but the situation reversed itself by high school. By ninth grade, more than one-third of Piedmont students flunked the flexibility test.

State Superintendent of Public Instruction Tom Torlakson released the results of the state's 2011 Physical Fitness Test at a news conference Wednesday afternoon.

Only 31 percent of students statewide posted healthy scores in all six areas of the latest Physical Fitness Test, he said. For PUSD, the figure was 57.7 percent in Grade 5, 47.8 percent in Grade 7 and 37.5 percent in Grade 9.

The 2011 Physical Fitness Test was administered to 1.34 million students, representing 93 percent of pupils enrolled in the fifth, seventh, and ninth grades in California in the 2010-2011 school year.

More PUSD Results

Among last year's fifth graders, "healthy" scores ranged from a low of 77.2 percent of students for body composition to a high of 97.4 percent for trunk extension strength.

For seventh graders, scores ranged from 75 percent "healthy" on the flexibility test to 96.1 percent on trunk extension strength.

Ninth graders ranged from 75.5 percent "healthy" on body composition to 93.5 percent in abdominal strength.

Among students scoring "healthy" on all six tests: fifth grade girls, 69.3 percent; fifth grade boys, 47.5 percent. Seventh grade girls, 57.8 percent; seventh grade boys, 39.2 percent. Ninth grade girls, 32.7 percent; ninth grade boys, 43 percent.

A detailed breakdown of test results is available on the California Department of Education website at PFT Results - Physical Fitness Testing (PFT). Note: Several dozen separate reports are available on the website for PUSD. They include breakdowns by grade level, gender, school and ethnicity, and comparisons with the previous year's results.

About the Tests

The California State Board of Education designated the FITNESSGRAM® in 1996 as the required Physical Fitness Test that local educational agencies administer to students annually in grades five, seven, and nine. State law requires all public schools in California to report these results in their School Accountability Report Cards and provide students with their individual results.

The FITNESSGRAM® was designed by The Cooper Institute to evaluate fitness performance and increase the likelihood students will adopt lifetime patterns of physical activity. The FITNESSGRAM® assesses six fitness areas: (1) aerobic capacity, (2) body composition, (3) abdominal strength, (4) trunk extensor strength, (5) upper body strength, and (6) flexibility.

New standards have been established for the aerobic capacity and body composition fitness areas. Under the new criteria for aerobic capacity and body composition, these fitness areas are broken down into three categories: (1) In the Healthy Fitness Zone®, (2) Needs Improvement (i.e., not in HFZ®), and (3) Needs Improvement — High Risk (i.e., not in HFZ® and at high risk). The Healthy Fitness Zone, or HFZ, is a trademark of the Cooper Institute of Texas, which developed the tests.

In the last four fitness areas of abdominal strength, trunk extensor strength, upper body strength, and flexibility, performance is classified into two general areas: (1) In the HFZ® and (2) Needs Improvement. A score in the HFZ® indicates the student's level of fitness is sufficient for good health.

While aerobic capacity is an indicator of physical fitness, body composition is perhaps the most important indicator of who will develop future health problems, according to a press release from Torlakson's office. The results show 34.1 percent of grade five students, 30.3 percent of grade seven students, and 25.0 percent of grade nine students are categorized as High Risk.

To score in the HFZ®, the test requires, for instance, that a five-foot six-inch, 150-pound, 15-year-old ninth grade male run a mile within nine minutes, perform at least 16 push-ups, and do at least 24 curl-ups. For all six areas of the test:

• 25.2 percent of fifth-grade students were in the HFZ®, compared to 29 percent in 2010;
• 32.0 percent of seventh-grade students were in the HFZ®, compared to 35 percent in 2010; and
• 36.8 percent of ninth-grade students were in the HFZ®, compared to 38.7 percent in 2010.