Shake off that Chicken Fat!

Do you remember President Kennedy's Council on Physical Fitness and Sports?  That initiative, along with the passage of Title IX in 1972, had a major impact on our country. President Kennedy published an important essay, "The Soft American" in Sports Illustrated http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/vault/article/magazine/MAG1134750/2/index.htm in 1960.  He wrote, "Thus, in a very real and immediate sense, our growing softness, our increasing lack of physical fitness, is a menace to our security."  Italics are mine.  He believed that our physical vigor was one of our country's resources. 

To fight the Cold War we needed to be physically fit.  The fittest of the fit, the Mercury astronauts, the fellas with the "Right Stuff," are well known to us all.   Role models for girls weren't as common. It wasn't until Title IX was passed in 1972 that women's fitness was slowly brought to parity.

As part of President Kennedy's initiative, Meredith Wilson, the composer of "The Music Man," wrote a  song to exercise with, "The Chicken Fat Song" that featured Robert Preston, star of the Broadway show and movie.   Thousands of records were sent to schools across the country. School children exercised to this silly song and learned that moving made you feel better.

Get up off the couch, touch your toes, and work those crunches and push ups.
Click here: https://soundcloud.com/pcradio/robert-preston-chicken-fat to hear the song and shake the fat.