IQ, which measures a person's intelli--gence, has been around for a long time. In recent years it has been joined by EQ, which measures social adaptability and the social skills necessary for success. But no matter how high your IQ or EQ, with a poor MQ (motor quotient) you're not going to be a good athlete.

At the end of February, as students were registering for a new term at Yingchiao Junior High School, they all received "physical fitness report cards" which stated the results of physical fitness tests taken the previous term, as well as a one-to-five rating on each item.

On a seventh-grader's computer print-out card was the following: "Muscular endurance-knee-bent sit-ups: 15 in 30 seconds. Rating: 3. Flexibility-seated forward stretch: 24 centimeters. Rating: 2. Instantaneous force-standing jump: 154 centimeters. Rating: 3. Cardiopulmonary endurance: 800 meters in 342 seconds. Rating: 1.

Lin Kao-yi, the head of physical education at the school, points out that they were too rushed this time and so were only able to issue physical report cards. In the future they will give "exercise prescriptions" that will focus on the physical conditions of individual students, making suggestions about how each could improve their physical fitness.

Beginning this year, such measurements of physical fitness will be universally employed by all elementary, junior high and senior high schools in Taiwan.

On one day, students in the 16th section of the sixth grade at Tunhua Elementary School are preparing for their physical fitness examinations, and teacher Li Mei-chin is armed with a tape measure and a stop watch.

First she measures muscular endurance. The students pair off. Half of them lie on their backs with their knees raised, ready for sit-ups, while the others hold their feet in place and count. When the call is given to start, they pull themselves upwards and bring themselves down, at first in unison. Soon different rhythms emerge. Some simply give up and lie on the floor; others with red faces struggle slowly up; while still others resemble the bunnies in that battery commercial: they just keep on going, full of energy.

When the call is made to stop, students report the totals one after another. One kid did 52; another was only able to do 5. The disparity is truly startling. Generally speaking, the boys have shown greater muscular endurance than the girls.

But when it comes to the next measure, that of flexibility, the girls turn the tables. For this test, the students sit with their legs flat on the ground, spread them to the width of their shoulders and then touch the ground as far beyond their feet as they can. Most of the girls prove to be more flexible than the boys, especially a few girls who had taken dance classes. They can virtually press their torsos flat against the surface of the floor. When one girl sets the class record at 40 centimeters, she earns cheers and applause.

Staying in shape

The result of social affluence and abundant nutrition is that children are indeed getting taller and heavier. "In school yards there are little fatties everywhere, and some sixth graders are already 180 centimeters tall," says Wang Yi-chih, the principal of the Sanmin Elementary School. He smiles as he says that kids look like mountains from a distance and pagodas up close.

But great height and weight are not the same thing as good physical condition. Chu Jung-le, head of the phys ed department at Huaisheng elementary school, says that today's children have height and bulk but are totally out of shape. "They start panting before they've run two strides, and their cardio-pulmonary capacities are pathetic. What's more, they can't do a single pull-up. They've got no muscular strength whatsoever!"

One mother whose child is in first grade is worried about her daughter, who is already 140 cm tall but keeps falling over: "Is it a problem with her balance?" she has gone everywhere asking.

One mother sighs about her daughter who has just gone off to college. Although appearing quite healthy at first glance, she pants like a cow when carrying only a third of a typical load the mother carries. "Kids today have weight but no strength or physical ability!"

Warning about children's fitness

In January of this year, at the "1997 Athletics Education Symposium" put on by the Republic of China National Society of Physical Education, Yoshifumi Kobayashi, a professor of special education at Yokohama University and the principal of a university-affiliated school, delivered a lecture in which he pointed out that the MQs of modern people are falling rapidly, as people grow clumsy and lose their agility, reaction ability and hand-eye coordination. He made a call for schools and parents to stress their children's physical development.

MQ stands for Motor Intelligence Quotient and is a figure assessing athletic ability. Physical fitness, on the other hand, refers to the body's ability to adapt to its environment, life and athletics; it is what most people mean when they say someone is in good or bad shape.

Are children really in worse shape than ever? In newspapers and magazines, one can now and then see such alarming headlines as these: "City Kids' Physical Condition Falling!" "Physical Fitness of School-Age Kids Dropping Fast!". . . Such reports urge adults to "save the next generation!"

Bloated waistlines

Last year the results of several physical examinations gave more cause for concern about the future robustness of the nation.

Because many countries have long-term plans for raising the physical fitness of citizens, with even mainland China establishing citizens' fitness files, the ROC came up with its own "Raising Citizens' Fitness Plan" two years ago. Last year the Ministry of Education appointed National Taiwan Normal University and the College of Physical Education and Sports to conduct a survey of the nation's fitness. The results of examinations of 30,000 students from elementary school to university have been used to make "standard values" for the physical fitness of each age group of students.

It's hard not to want to compare these results with those from other countries. But Frank Fang, who participated in carrying out this research survey, points out that methods vary from nation to nation, and so international comparisons can only serve as rough estimates. The results show that ROC students are less fit that those of the United States, Canada, mainland China, Japan, and Singapore, and are only in slightly better shape than the children of Hong Kong.

Because Principal Chang Hsun-cheng of Yingchiao Junior High majored in physical education, he is particularly interested in fitness. Last term, when he learned that the Ministry of Education was going to promote physical education, he went ahead on his own to carry out physical fitness examinations for all of the school's teachers and students. The results were far removed from the standard values found by the Ministry of Education.

Lin Kao-yi, the head of the physical education department at the school, notes that of all the various categories measured, cardio-pulmonary strength was the lowest. In the 1600 meter race for boys and the 800 meter race for girls, 83 percent of the students showed results that were poor or close to poor. And in the test for flexibility, 67 percent of the students were under the standard. The King Car Educational Foundation, whose stated purpose is to promote basic education for children and adolescents, carried out physical examinations on 200 sixth graders at the Hsingan Elementary School, and the results were even more startling. Of the students tested, many fell short of the Ministry of Education's reference value: 91 percent fell short for muscular endurance, 86 percent for instantaneous force, and 41 percent for cardiopulmonary endurance.

Yingchiao Junior High and Hsing-an Elementary School are located in Taipei County, and both schools had records that were below the national average. Su Chun-hsien, the director of physical education at China Cultural University, holds that there is probably "a fitness gap between the cities and the countryside." In other words, city kids are in worse shape.

But there are also some phys ed teachers who believe that the Ministry of Education has released figures that show things in too good a light-that perhaps too few students were tested or that better athletes were selected to take the tests.

Caged birds

And although some may view them as unrealistically high, the national figures still stand up poorly to those of other countries, which should make us even more alarmed about the physical condition of children here.

Wang Yi-chih holds that the living environment is a major reason children are in such poor shape today: "Of course there's going to be a difference in the cardiopulmonary condition of children who take cars and buses to school as opposed to those who get to school on their own two feet." He recalls that when he was little he had a long walk to school every day. Today, with the changes to the environment, most children in the cities ride automobiles to school, and don't even have a chance to walk a short distance.

Crammed with long rows of high rises, big cities lack safe spaces for exercise. When this is combined with concerns about law and order (there have been widely publicized kidnappings) children, when not at school, are all too often shut up at home, with few chances to get outside.

"Outside cars and buses take you where you want to go, and at home if you're not watching television, you're at the computer or playing video games." Chu Jung-le believes that technology, by making things more convenient, has also caused today's children to lack exercise, and this in turn has led to a decline in their physical conditions.

Even at school, children have limited space. This is especially so in urban areas, where land is worth its weight in gold. Few schools have expansive campuses, and mini schools are quite common.

The Tunhua Elementary School at the corner of Tunhua North Road and Pa-te Road is a typical urban school. All 24 sections in the same grade take their gym period at the same time. With a few sections in the dance room and activity center or on the tennis courts, 16 sections of students pile out into the school yard. "But our students can't run on the track oval, because if they try, they'll just end up running into someone else," says Li Mei-chin, a sixth-grade teacher there.

The situation at Chiehshou Junior High is similar. At any given time the athletic field, which is enclosed by a 200 meter track, will have nearly 10 sections taking phys ed there. If they are unlucky and it rains, then students will have to be cooped up in a classroom listening to the teacher talk about "sports injuries."

There is another problem plaguing physical education at the elementary school level: a basic lack of teaching resources. Because elementary school teachers are responsible for instructing their students in every subject, they often lack expertise in physical education. As a result, it is quite common to play dodge ball in every phys ed period from third to sixth grade.

Chickens getting fattened

A lack of space and opportunities for exercise has made modern children resemble caged chickens being fattened for slaughter that have lost the ability to fly. And with the pressures of academic advancement and the Chinese tradition of emphasizing the mental over the physical, children seem to have forsaken the body altogether.

According to statistics of the Department of Health, over 70 percent of people here over the age of 15 do not get regular exercise. "When adults don't get exercise themselves, how can they get children in the habit of exercising?" Frank Fang believes that if you want to improve the physical condition of young people, you've got to start with their elders.

The excuse that adults give for not exercising is that they "lack time" and the reason they give for not allowing children to exercise is that "it will interfere with their school work."

Liu Ming-chuan, the head of physical education at Kangning Elementary school, notes that many parents refuse to allow their children to join school teams, giving such reasons as "they would get all sweaty and dirty" or "after sports they wouldn't have any energy left for their school work." They particularly look askance on track and field. Virtually all of the kids who are selected to be on the team end up confronting parental opposition.

"One kid was the fastest in his whole grade, but after I picked him to race, his mother would always call the school to talk with me the next day." Liu recalls with frustration that for the relay, "The principal eventually had to call each of the kids' parents and beg."

Chiu Yi-te, a physical education teacher at Chiehshou Junior High, says that every year there are students who seek him out for help, hoping to enroll in the physical education programs at Sungshan High or at the extension school at Chienkuo High, but eventually many of them are unable to follow through on their plans because of parental opposition.

Strong body, weak mind?

Recently, 100 parents of students at Tunhua Elementary School filled out questionnaires on children and sport. The results showed that more than one out of four parents worried that schoolwork would suffer if children spent too much time playing sports. Some parents believed that if students got too much exercise, they wouldn't have any energies left for their studies. Others even used the expression "strong body, weak mind" to explain why they opposed their children playing sports.

But do the strong-bodied necessarily have weak minds?

Hsu Yi-hsiung, the head of the graduate physical education program at National Taiwan Normal University, is unequivocal in stating that foreign research shows that children who are physically active and athletic are highly creative and more intelligent than average.

"Exercise requires good reactions. Those with 'simple minds' won't hack it," Liu Ming-chuan says. For instance, when he picks kids for table tennis, "I first go to every class and examine kids' eyes." Good eyes are the first precondition for playing ping-pong well. Then he looks for flexibility, agility, and reaction ability. Finally he goes to the school counselor's office to test their IQs. "There's no way to teach dullards."

Hsu Yi-hsiung believes that most people, as the result of poor previous training methods, have the mistaken impression that a strong body implies a weak mind. "They used to make athletes practice all the time and never give them chances to hit the books." Training that over-stressed physical development resulted in such students having poor academic records.

In fact, the division between training the mind and body has a long tradition in China, where historically education was divided between the "martial" and the "literary." Lin Han-chang, a bookseller and self-trained historian, notes from his reading of the book Chinese Civil Service Exams that in ancient times the tests given to determine martial potential included archery on foot, archery on horseback, stiff bow pulling, swordsmanship, and moving large rocks.

In the Qing dynasty, although the martial examinations included written tests about the martial classics, most of those who pursued martial educations were illiterate, and hired other people to take the written tests for them. The testing administration was clear about what was going on, and would lock up the exams and not let anyone see them. It was all a charade.

The history of physical education

Western countries ordinarily place much more emphasis on athletics than Taiwan. Here children with physical problems have the "special privilege" of being exempt from physical education, whereas in the United States and Europe, gym teachers let children with such chronic conditions as asthma and heart conditions first try exercising for a while to see how it goes, before resting. "They would certainly never take away their right to get exercise."

The Western love of athletics can be traced all the way back to ancient Greece. In Greece, the founding nation of sport, a balanced development of mind and body was thought necessary for any good citizen. Plato wrote, "A good education cultivates children's bodies and minds to a state of wonder and perfection."

In fact in early China too, a balance between the two was emphasized. In his book The History of Physical Education, Wu Wen-chung, formerly a professor of physical education at Taiwan Normal University, points out that in the Zhou dynasty equal stress was placed on the physical and the literary. And of all physical activities during the Zhou, dancing was looked upon most highly. Take this passage from the Spring and Autumn Annals of Mr. Lu: "During the time of Yin Kang, because the people were melancholy with their bones and tendons inactive, people were encouraged to dance."

Back then two of the six arts studied at imperial schools, chariot riding and archery, were largely physical. (The other four were etiquette, music, calligraphy and math.) Because archery and chariot riding were of use in the wars that were constantly breaking out, they were essential skills for men.

But ever since the Han emperor Gaozu began stressing the literary and downplaying the martial, the practice of emphasizing the mental at the expense of the physical has been prevalent in society. In the Tang dynasty, the civil-service exams became divided between the martial and the literary.

With the conception in society that "All things are base, save book learning, which is noble," even those who passed the local and provincial martial exams weren't highly regarded. And at times of peace, there was nothing for people who had passed the local martial exam to do. They would often end up using their physical strength in the service of such illegal endeavors as counterfeiting, robbery, loan sharking and the running of gambling halls.

Nevertheless, the period of Chinese history in which the body was most debased began in the late Tang and continued on through the Song, with the fashion for binding women's feet. Later, in the Qing dynasty, smoking opium became widespread. With their feet bound, women had a hard time even walking, let alone playing sports. The smoking of opium made Chinese, who were already weak physically, virtually incapacitated.

After China lost the Opium War, intellectuals started to become aware that the nation and race were in a state of crisis, and made calls for the "strengthening and taking care of the nation." They cast aside the old civil service exams and instituted a new educational system. This is when a conception of modern athletics finally began to take hold in China. Yan Fu promoted a theory of ideal living and progress in which he argued that "only when mothers are healthy can the children grow strong." He stressed the importance of physical fitness for women.

But the old conceptions did not die overnight. And before the old ailment could be cured, the patient contracted a new illness: pressures for academic advancement began growing heavier and heavier. The joint entrance exam system is a modern version of the imperial civil service examination system, and it pushes down on modern children so much they scarcely can breathe.

Just adding to the pressure?

For many years, the ROC has spent great amounts of money and human resources in cultivating elite athletes, but international success won't come overnight, so the focus has shifted toward improving overall physical fitness. "The results of past investment in competitive athletics have greatly disappointed the people," says Wu Lung-shan, the head of the Ministry of Education's Department of Physical Education and Sports. With Olympic failure, there has been a policy shift toward developing general physical fitness in the population.

Besides soothing the hurt of failed Olympic dreams, such a policy is also in line with world trends.

In many Western nations, the emphasis in medicine is moving from treating illness to preventing it, and the best way of preventing illness is to strengthen physical fitness. To take the United States as an example, they hope that by the year 2000 60% of their population will be regularly getting exercise. In the "Six Year Plan for Keeping the Populace Fit" outlined by the ROC Department of Health, the hope is that the proportion of people here regularly getting exercise can rise to 40%.

In order to stir a physical-fitness craze and thereby get people here to lay more stress on physical fitness, the Ministry of Education this year proposed a standardized test for physical fitness to be used in all the schools. Wu Lung-shan points out that the results of these tests for all elementary schools, junior and senior high schools (including vocational schools) will be completed by October of this year, and at that time it will be possible to make a long-term plan for developing the nation's physical fitness based on those results.

What's more, Minister of Education Wu Ching has proposed an idea of allowing points to be added to the joint entrance exams based on level of physical fitness. This proposal has been applauded by many people who work in education.

"The purpose of the joint entrance exams is to select the talented, with talent being interpreted broadly. Why shouldn't physical abilities also be tested?" asks Chang Hsun-chen, principal at Yingchiao Junior High School, who believes that adding in a measure of physical fitness is a good way to attain the balanced, five-sided development (moral, intellectual, physical, interpersonal, and artistic) that is the stated goal of modern Chinese education.

Some urban parents also believe that there ought to be more stress on training the body. The Tunhua survey showed that though parents may not want fitness points to be added to joint entrance exam scores, almost all of them-96%-want the school to put more emphasis on physical training.

The reasons parents gave were pretty similar: "Free-range chickens are healthier" or "Strengthening fitness improves health" or "There's too little space in the cities, which means children get less exercise, and so more emphasis should be placed on its importance."

As for the idea about adding points in the joint entrance exams for physical fitness, the parents showed a more conservative attitude, with 34% saying they opposed the idea. Those opposed held that the added score for athletics would just add to children's pressures, and that innate differences in athletic ability would make the inclusion of athletic points unfair.

Innate or learned

But is athletic ability completely genetic? Or is it affected by training?

Frank Fang points out that there are several factors that affect athletic ability: genes, lifestyle, nutrition, ability to cope with pressure, training, and so forth. Training is the most important among them: "Basic physical ability is like EQ; it can be cultivated."

"With training, everyone's athletic performance will improve," says Chu Jong-le, the athletics director of Huaisheng Elementary School. The results from the school's physical fitness exams at the end of the term were much better than those at the beginning of the term. "In particular, cardiopulmonary endurance showed the most obvious gains." Taking fourth graders as an example, he notes that on the first exam, their average for the 800 meters was over five minutes. By the end of the term, the kids were running nearly a minute faster.

Chen Hai-hsiung, the principal of Tainan's Minte Junior High, believes that although children may have unequal athletic abilities, they are equally benefited by participating in sport. He points out that in the 1940s and 1950s the winners of Taiwan-wide track competitions were always from what were academically the best one or two schools in their city or county. "From this you can see that athletics don't have a bad effect on academic performance," he insists.

"The time that children spend on athletics will have its rewards in other aspects of their lives," says Frank Fang. He points out that physical fitness helps to improve health, prevent disease and raise the quality of life. He takes himself as an example. Having gotten regular exercise for 20 years, his emotions are on an even keel, he gets along well with other people, works at high efficiency, and can read for several hours on end without feeling tired.

Balanced education

Hsinchu High, famous provincewide, is an excellent example of a school that produces fine minds in fine bodies.

More than ten years ago, a boat in Tanshui capsized, and many passengers drowned. Several graduates of Hsinchu High were on board and escaped with their lives because they could swim. The incident made the school famous.

The demands made by Hsinchu High on the physical fitness of its students have remained the same over the course of several decades. Liu Ting-yu, the secretary to the principal, points out that because the first principal after retrocession, Hsin Chih-ping, held firm to the principle of a balanced, five-sided education, the school is just as demanding in physical education as it is in the rest of its curriculum

To cultivate students' athletic abilities, every year Hsinchu High puts on cross-country races and athletic meets, requiring every student to participate. "Without physical energy, how can you study well?" asks Chou Mei-po, the head of physical education at the school who has worked there for 28 years. Except those who are physically handicapped, all students at the school must take swimming lessons and be able to swim 20 meters in order to graduate.

The regulation has created no small number of competitive swimmers. "Every year at the swim meets for universities and colleges, almost all of the top swimmers are graduates of Hsinchu High," says physical education teacher Huang Sheng-min with great pride. The great long-distance swimmer Wang Han is likewise a graduate of Hsinchu High.

Lee Yuan-tseh, the president of the Academia Sinica and an illustrious alumnus of Hsinchu High, has more than once publicly expressed his gratitude for the balanced education he got there. He feels it has been of great benefit to him.

Moving for junior's sake

Even if parents object to adding a physical fitness component to the joint entrance exam scores, there are many modern parents who understand the importance of physical fitness and leave Taipei for remoter districts in order to give their children ample living space.

One professional woman who moved to the Taoyuan countryside last year found that two weeks after she moved her six-year-old daughter had mastered the art of riding her bike. The girl had previously had little success trying to learn on their city apartment balcony, which was only a few yards long. Now, even her four-year-old younger brother has dispensed with his training wheels. "In the neighborhood the kids who don't know how to ride bikes are mocked and scorned by those who do."

Then there are some parents who try to seek out ample living space for their children in the urban jungle.

In the basement of a city high rise, there is a space of slightly more than 100 square meters. Across the padded floor are various installations to climb and jump on. Here, parents bring their kids, who, under the watchful eye of teacher, climb, jump, wriggle through tunnels and slide down slides.

Chen Mei-hui, the director of this "Gymboree," says that seven years ago they introduced a parent-child curriculum based on the American theory of sensory integration, but no one paid much attention until about a year or two ago.

One mother brought her 15-month-old daughter to play. "Our home has no large and safe spaces where the kids can play," she says. She has been bringing her daughter here once a week ever since she was six months old, and the girl learned to walk at only ten months.

Liu Li-fen, another mother, was an outstanding runner and ball player in her student days, playing on school teams. She believes that sports improves both one's health and one's intellectual faculties, and so she wants to cultivate athletic ability in her children. "There's no space to move about in the cities, and the small parks are full of dog doodoo." She says that apart from regularly bringing her children to this Gymboree, she also takes them to visit her mother in the countryside whenever she has time: "As soon as they arrive in the country, they start running around everywhere. They're so happy!"

Getting one's strength back

There are also parents who hire tutors, but not for the usual English, math, physics and chemistry, but rather for sport.

The lawyer Chin Hsin not only takes time out of his busy schedule to get exercise three or four times a week, but also has hired a physical education tutor for his daughter, who is in the fourth grade. "Interests have got to be cultivated from a young age, and it's no different for athletics," he says. With the overwhelming concern for academic advancement, children rarely get exercise. And since the schools don't stress this, he has just gone ahead and hired a tutor.

Kao Chun-mei, a junior in the physical education department at Taiwan Normal, has made use of her vacations to serve as a "phys ed tutor" ever since she came to university. She teaches techniques for table tennis, swimming, basketball, tennis and various other sports.

"Modern parents, particularly in Taipei, put a lot of stress on physical fitness training," she says. "They hope that athletics will help their kids to grow up better." She once taught a third grader, who at first was very uncoordinated and had poor reactions, and could never grasp the timing of a bouncing ball. After two months of practice at table tennis, the kid showed improvement both in coordination and in ability to concentrate.

The typical pay for phys ed tutors is NT$600 an hour, which compares quite favorably to the NT$350-400 that tutors for academic subjects typically make. Wang Fu-yuan, president of the Student Athletics Society at Taiwan Normal University, explains, "When teaching kids to swim, you've got to jump in the water with them, when teaching them to play ball, you've got to get hot and sweaty. It's not like teaching other disciplines when you can just sit in an air-conditioned room."

But the wage disparity also reflects supply and demand, and shows that values are changing. In Wang Fu-yuan's class of 30 some students, more than half have worked as physical education teachers. He personally works for four families and pulls in NT$10,000 a month.

Some schools are beginning to strengthen children's physical educations.

"Olympic ability is a rare gift, but simple physical fitness shouldn't be," says Chang Hsun-cheng, the principal of Yingchiao Junior High. To encourage student participation in sport, basketballs and badminton shuttlecocks are left out on the courts on the school's athletic field, and can be used by any enrolled student. "My goal is that when the students graduate from Yingchiao Junior High, they can run 1500 meters and not be short of breath or red in the face."

Good health for everyone

On Sunday afternoon the small neighbor-hood parks are packed with people. The basketball courts are full of teenagers battling each other for rebounds. Kids on the skating rinks are gesturing gracefully with their bodies and arms, and on the grass others are playing baseball and badminton. Off to the side there are parents leading their younger children riding play horses, going down the slides and playing on the see-saws. And toddlers who have just learned how to walk, are taking unstable steps, wobbling forward while holding their mothers' hands.

Playing and running around used to be thought of as activities that kids did naturally. But in the modern social and cultural environment, children are losing their "natural gift from heaven." How to go about restoring children's physical potential is well worth the consideration of modern parents.

[Picture Caption]

Do you get passing marks for physical fitness? See how many bent-leg sit-ups you can do in a minute. Sixth-graders at Tunhua Elementary School show a remarkable range of results, from five to 52.

The younger generation is taller and heavier, but is it healthier?

Physical fitness is not just a tool for gauging athletic potential, but also a precondition to health and happiness in life.

City kids are like caged birds that gradually lose their ability to fly.

Running around barefoot, country kids show better cardiopulmonary functions than their urban counterparts, who go everywhere in cars.

The physical education classrooms at Yingchiao Junior High have extensive equipment. No matter the whims of the weather, students can come here to work out.

Some nursery schools arrange for physical education classes, so that the ir charges can get in shape just by playing.

Modern kids get ample nutrition, but their level of activity has decline d greatly The old worries about "insufficient nutrition" have been replaced with new ones about "overeating."

Tug of war was a game that soldiers played at the end of the Spring and Autumn era. Now, 2000 years later, it's a competition that few school athletics meets can do without. (photo by Pu Hua-chih)

On vacation days, the grounds around the Sun Yat-sen Memorial are a place where kids can strut their athletic stuff. It's just too bad that the number of such places in Taipei City can be counted on one's fingers.

Physical fitness is not just a tool for gauging athletic potential, but also a precondition to health and happiness in life.

City kids are like caged birds that gradually lose their ability to fly.

Running around barefoot, country kids show better cardiopulmonary functions than their urban counterparts, who go everywhere in cars.

The physical education classrooms at Yingchiao Junior High have extensive equipment. No matter the whims of the weather, students can come here to work out.

Some nursery schools arrange for physical education classes, so that the ir charges can get in shape just by playing.

Modern kids get ample nutrition, but their level of activity has decline d greatly The old worries about "insufficient nutrition" have been replaced with new ones about "overeating.".

Tug of war was a game that soldiers played at the end of the Spring and Autumn era. Now, 2000 years later, it's a competition that few school athletics meets can do without. （photo by Pu Hua-chih）

On vacation days, the grounds around the Sun Yat-sen Memorial are a place where kids can strut their athletic stuff. It's just too bad that the number of such places in Taipei City can be counted on one's fingers.