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Fitnessgram/Activitygram Reference Guide (4Th Edition) (Pp ® ® FITNESSGRAM /ACTIVITYGRAM Reference Guide (4th Edition) Editors Sharon A. Plowman and Marilu D. Meredith Suggested citations from this source: Reference to a chapter (sample) in the book: Plowman, S.A. (2013). Muscular Strength, Endurance, and Flexibility Assessments. In S. A. Plowman & M.D. Meredith (Eds.), Fitnessgram/Activitygram Reference Guide (4th Edition) (pp. Internet Resource). Dallas, TX: The Cooper Institute, 8-1 - 8-55. Reference to the whole book: Plowman, S.A. & Meredith, M.D. (Eds.). (2013). Fitnessgram/Activitygram Reference Guide (4th Edition). Dallas, TX: The Cooper Institute. Document Navigation: At the bottom of each page two links will assist in navigating this document: TOC ‐ links back to the Table of Contents Chapter ‐ links back to the beginning of the current Chapter FITNESSGRAM / ACTIVITYGRAM Reference Guide ® Chapter 1 - The History of FITNESSGRAM ............................................... 1-1 (Plowman, Meredith, Sterling, Corbin, Welk, and Morrow) Chapter 2 – Why Test? Effective Use of Fitness and Activity Assessments ....................................................................................... 2-1 (Corbin, Lambdin, Mahar, Roberts, and Pangrazi) Chapter 3 - Health Benefits of Physical Activity and Fitness in Youth ................................................................................. 3-1 (Eisenmann, Welk, Morrow, and Corbin) Chapter 4 – Physical Fitness Standards for Children ........................ 4-1 (Morrow, Zhu, and Mahar) Chapter 5 - Physical Activity Assessment .................................................. 5-1 (Welk, Mahar, and Morrow) Chapter 6 - Aerobic Capacity Assessments .............................................. 6-1 (Cureton, Plowman, and Mahar) Chapter 7 – Body Composition Assessments ......................................... 7-1 (Going, Lohman, and Eisenmann) Chapter 8 - Muscular Strength, Endurance, and Flexibility Assessments ....................................................................................... 8-1 (Plowman) Chapter 9 - Interpreting FITNESSGRAM® and ACTIVITYGRAM® Reports ............................................................................................. 9-1 (Meredith, Lambdin, Roberts, Welk, and Morrow) Copyrighted material. All rights reserved. 2 The Cooper Institute, Dallas, TX. FITNESSGRAM / ACTIVITYGRAM Reference Guide Chapter 1 The History of FITNESSGRAM® Sharon A. Plowman, Marilu D. Meredith, Charles L. Sterling, Charles B. Corbin, Gregory J. Welk, James R. Morrow, Jr. Abstract ..................................................................................................................................... 1-1 Introduction ............................................................................................................................. 1-1 A Commitment to Health-Related Physical Fitness ............................................... 1-3 A Concentration on Criterion-Referenced Standards (CRS) ............................ 1-10 A Consistent Emphasis on Fitness Behavior/Physical Activity ..................... 1-12 Systematic Updating and Sophistication of the Computerized Reporting System ......................................................................................... 1-13 Conclusion ............................................................................................................................. 1-19 Bibliography .......................................................................................................................... 1-20 (Note: This manuscript is an update of a previously published article: Plowman, S.A., Sterling, C.L., Corbin, C.B., Meredith, M.D., Welk, G.J., and Morrow, J.R., Jr.: (2006). The History of FITNESSGRAM®. Journal of Physical Activity & Health, 3 (Supplement 2), S5-S20. Additions/modifications made with permission of the publisher, Human Kinetics, Champaign, IL TOC Chapter Copyrighted material. All rights reserved. 1-1 The Cooper Institute, Dallas, TX. FITNESSGRAM / ACTIVITYGRAM Reference Guide Abstract Initially designed by Charles L. Sterling as a physical fitness “report card,” FITNESSGRAM® is now the educational assessment and reporting software portion of the Presidential Youth Fitness Program. Based on physiological/epidemiological, behavioral, and pedagogical research, FITNESSGRAM® is committed to health-related physical fitness, criterion-referenced standards, an emphasis on physical activity, and the latest in technology. The evolution of these major concepts including the inclusion of ACTIVITYGRAM® and NUTRIGRAM® is described in this history of FITNESSGRAM®. Introduction The concept for FITNESSGRAM® had its beginning in 1977 when Charles L. Sterling, Ed.D., the Director of Health and Physical Education of the Richardson, Texas school system, recognized school administrators’ and parents’ interest in a physical fitness “report card” similar to those used in other educational areas. He also recognized the potential for using computers to print reports and keep student records. Sterling and teachers Marilu Meredith, Nancy Voith, Cindy Raymond, and Don Rainey administered the Texas Physical Fitness—Motor Ability Test (Governor’s Commission on Physical Fitness, 1972) in their schools. Personalized fitness report cards were then generated for all students using customized software developed for the school district’s mainframe computer. In 1981, Dr. Sterling joined the staff of the Cooper Institute for Aerobics Research (CIAR/IAR/CI) in Dallas. The Institute had a mainframe computer that allowed batch processing of the physical fitness reports. This created the opportunity to take the concept to a wider audience, but a name was needed. FITNESSGRAM® was chosen through a contest in the local school district—Nancy Voith is credited with the winning entry. This name played off the concept of a telegram and suited the intended purpose of the report—namely, to communicate important fitness information to children and parents. The Campbell Soup Company’s Institute for Health and Fitness signed on as a national sponsor to support the promotion and dissemination of the tool. Dr. Marilu Meredith was hired as National Project Director in 1982, a position she held until 2012. At that time Dr. Meredith became the Director of the Perot International Youth Data Repository with part-time FITNESSGRAM® duties. In 2013 Catherine Vowell assumed the directorship of FITNESSGRAM®. FITNESSGRAM® (FG) was implemented in phases with the first pilot conducted in 30 schools in the Tulsa, Oklahoma School District (1982-83) using the AAHPERD Youth Fitness Test (YFT) (American Alliance for Health, Physical Education, and Recreation [AAHPER], 1976; Lacy & Marshall, 1984; Razor, 1984). In the second year (1983-84), approximately 125 schools throughout Oklahoma participated and were able to select either the AAHPERD YFT or the AAHPERD Health Related Fitness Test (HRPFT) (American Alliance for Health, Physical Education, Recreation and Dance [AAHPERD], 1980). After these successes, FG was implemented on a national basis first as a pilot, one district per state in addition to OK (1984-85), and then unrestricted (1985-86). Now, in 2013, FITNESSGRAM®/ACTIVITYGRAM® (FG) is an educational assessment and reporting software system that has been used by thousands of teachers with millions of youth in schools worldwide to help teachers track health-related fitness and physical activity information over time and produce personalized reports for children, parents, and school administrators. In conjunction with a variety of partners, FG has pushed the evolution of physical TOC Chapter Copyrighted material. All rights reserved. 1-2 The Cooper Institute, Dallas, TX. FITNESSGRAM / ACTIVITYGRAM Reference Guide fitness and physical activity philosophy, research, evaluation, education, and promotion. This evolution has occurred in four major areas: 1. A commitment to the concept of health-related physical fitness, 2. A concentration on criterion-referenced evaluation in place of percentile norm-referenced evaluation, 3. A consistent emphasis on fitness behavior/physical activity, and 4. Systematic updating and sophistication of the computerized reporting system. A Commitment to Health-Related Physical Fitness At its inception FG was not a test battery. The route to embracing the current health related battery reflects the basic changes that were made in the last half of the twentieth century in the concept of physical fitness. The history of youth physical fitness testing from approximately the 1860s to 1988 is described in a government document prepared by Roberta Park (1988) and much of it need not be repeated here. Suffice it to say that since its inception in 1885, the organization now known as the American Alliance for Health, Physical Education, Recreation and Dance (AAHPER/AAHPERD) was deeply concerned with the physical fitness of American youth. Formal governmental involvement began in 1956 when President Dwight David Eisenhower established the President’s Council on Youth Fitness (PCYF) [name later changed to President’s Council on Physical Fitness (PCPF), then the President’s Council on Physical Fitness and Sports (PCPFS) and now the President’s Council on Fitness, Sports and Nutrition (PCFSN)] in response to published data that American children were less fit than European children (Kraus & Hirschland, 1953; 1954). Shortly thereafter the Research Council of AAHPER agreed on a battery of tests and the AAHPER Youth Fitness Project, a nationwide pilot study of the fitness levels
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