Weak Americans.

In 1957 President Eisenhower acted on his dismay at the physical weakness of American youth. According to the results of a study testing "minimum muscular fitness," more than half of the American children tested could not pass. Worse, when the same test was given to a group of European students, more than 90 percent of them passed.

The President's Response.

The president, a former army general, considered the country's physical fitness important to national security and a strong national character. To try to correct what he called the "fitness gap," he created the President's Council on Youth Fitness, a cabinet-level project headed by Vice-president Richard Nixon. The council advised schools and communities to provide more opportunities for organized sports and safe outdoor play.

The Price of Progress.

Behaviorial experts of the time pointed out the irony of the situation: much of...