{"id":842377,"date":"2026-09-10T01:24:08","date_gmt":"2026-09-10T01:24:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/842377\/"},"modified":"2026-09-10T01:24:08","modified_gmt":"2026-09-10T01:24:08","slug":"about-50-of-connecticut-students-pass-statewide-physical-fitness-assessment-according-to-data-nbc-connecticut","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/842377\/","title":{"rendered":"About 50% of Connecticut students pass statewide physical fitness assessment, according to data \u2013 NBC Connecticut"},"content":{"rendered":"

When it comes to overall physical fitness, scores have gone up over the last few years, but still, only about 50% of kids are passing the yearly physical assessment, according to state data.<\/a><\/p>\n

Exercise science professor Evan Johnson from Quinnipiac University said it’s not just about testing, but setting up students for a better quality of life in the future.<\/p>\n

“We want our Connecticut students to thrive once they are adults,” said Johnson. “And physical fitness is a part of them being able to thrive and flourish.”<\/p>\n

Johnson said schools are understandably pouring their resources into hitting academic benchmarks, but it comes with a cost.<\/p>\n

“We know that regular physical activity and not even being at a certain physical fitness level, but just the fact that you are active 60 minutes per day, is related to things like, you know, attention, cognition, and working memory,” said Johnson.<\/p>\n

Another hurdle for students is an increased dependence on technology.<\/p>\n

“I think the data is pretty clear that while people are still devoting a lot of time to being in front of a screen, if you were to ask them, do you want to be in front of that screen? The answer would likely be no,” Johnson said.<\/p>\n

He said the key is for schools to change their relationship with how they prioritize movement throughout the day.<\/p>\n

“We are active because we enjoy doing that, and we recognize the benefits,” said Johnson. “I think that is the best way to really instill physical activity as a part of everyday life in our children who are in school.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"When it comes to overall physical fitness, scores have gone up over the last few years, but still,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":842378,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[62],"tags":[337,97],"class_list":["post-842377","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-fitness","tag-fitness","tag-health"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/842377","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=842377"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/842377\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/842378"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=842377"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=842377"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=842377"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}