Fun we had earning them.

....physically those badges were beyond my physical abilities. That was half a century ago.....yeah, boggles my mind that my childhood was half a century ago!

Which is why I posted this here first. I figured our fellow DUers would be sure to point out any 'flies in the ointment'. If it passes muster here I'll offer it up to the Sanders Campaign people. (Still not sure how to do that but I've little doubt folks here can help).

It was to get the younger generation ready for military service, just in time for Vietnam, actually.

If I recall President Kennedy also started the Peace Corps. Not that these two are related but to me I never thought of President Kennedy as a "Hawk" but more of someone who wanted what was best for everyone. I thought of him as someone who wanted us healthy because it would be good for us. I was unaware that he wanted to do the Hitler thing, get the youth all ready to be canon fodder.

Well like I said earlier, I think that there is an obvious child obesity problem. Everyone likes kids, that's not a partisan thing so a candidate willing to create programs that help kids is likely to gain support from those who might vote for someone else. So far Bernie has been all about helping the citizenry, imho, offering up a program to help our nations youth won't hurt him at all.

I posted this notion here first, my intention is to pass it along to the Sanders Campaign folks. Unless I get a good reason why my suggestion is dumb, I intend to do just that. My bottom line here is to suggest something good for our youth, our nation and of course Bernie's bid for the Presidency.

healthy.

Military doctors during WWII were horrified by the number of young men who were unfit for service because of problems caused by childhood nutritional deficiencies.


I point this out whenever some rightwing jerk starts slobbering about SNAP.

I hope he sees to it that there are more options for the type of exercise than running, jumping, rope climbing.

The Kennedy program is the major reason I hate traditional exercise to this day. Dance, say, I could have gone for.

(Most coaches being jerks didn't help either.....)

As the skinny kid in class I was unable to achieve any of those merit badges. At that age it messes with a kid's ego pretty hard. Setting this all aside, we have history to work with. We can see what worked and what failed with the program. Obviously merit badges as a set of incentives would have to be 'rethunk', as well as types of exercises.

It'll need to pass muster with parents as well. They obviously can't be happy watching their loved ones pack on the pounds but they'll hardly go along with any program that was written up by the North Koreans for instance either. Whatever is come up with, the whole scheme must have as a goal, turning the tide on childhood obesity.

If Bernie Sanders had a program that could pass muster with the electorate, that had incentives that worked with the kids and he offered it up as something he intended to initiate as President, his popularity could only go up! Folks might even start comparing him to JFK and that wouldn't hurt him either.

Input from people who felt like they were left out because of achievement gaps is going to be important. And adding diversity of exercise will be important as well. Dancing is as good as running, but some people are going to be better at one or the other some will love both. Rope climbing is a no go for some people because of a fear of heights or lack of upper body strength they should be allowed to work on weights to bridge the gap of no upper body strength. And merit badges should be for individual milestones rather than some arbitrary measurement based on what someone thinks should be achievable.

Awards handed out on the last day of school. I wasn't aware that other schools don't participate.

More PE Teachers would be needed, let's hope some funding can be given towards that end.

Your post got me to wondering...so I went looking, (something I now strongly regret not doing earlier), and found:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/President's_Council_on_Fitness,_Sports,_and_Nutrition

I wanted to know if the idea had merit and I found instead that the program actually still exists! I recall the program as one widely known, with hindsight I could not tell if 'widely known' only entailed school kids and teachers or the general public. I suspect that in it's current incarnation President Kennedy's plan for physical fitness (for kids) is not so widely known by the general public. (Well obviously not by me )

That said, I'm not giving up on my notion, I need to investigate further and be back with a better thought out OP. I still believe that Bernie could lead the charge to getting our kids into better shape. I love the idea about more PE teachers...well to be blunt I love any ideas that get us more teachers!(They need to be better paid too but don't get me started......)

Thanks for 'waking me up' AwakeAtLast

Full disclosure: I am a Music Teacher, so I am familiar with PE Teachers.

I am also originally from Illinois, where PE is required EVERY DAY. I would love to see that nationwide.