Canada Fitness Award Program

The Canada Fitness Award Program was a national fitness test and evaluation program operated by the Government of Canada department Health and Welfare Canada from 1970 to 1992. It was a successor to the Centennial Athletic Awards Program, and was replaced by the Active Living Challenge program.

Millions of primary and secondary school children participated in the program. It was discontinued in part because it discouraged those it was intended to motivate.

The program was developed by Sport and Recreation Canada, a division of Health and Welfare Canada. It was established as a national fitness program by the Government of Canada, and began operating in September 1970. An official program launch ceremony was held in Lansdowne Park in Ottawa on 21 October 1970.

The program had several objectives:

It was intended to "create better attitudes towards personal fitness" and to build skills and aptitudes useful "beyond the formative years".

The directorate also operated the Canada Fitness Award Home Training Program, an "everyday physical fitness program", that was established in 1973.

The fitness test consisted of six short duration events for 7- to 18-year-old individuals: the 50 yard run, the 300 yard run, flexed arm hangs, the shuttle run, speed situps, and the standing long jump. It was based on the fitness performance tests developed by the Canadian Association for Health, Physical Education and Recreation (CAHPER; now Physical and Health Education Canada) from a fitness study conducted in 1965.

The test components were designed to measure specific physical capabilities. The 50 yard run was a proxy for speed, the 300 yard run for cardiovascular efficiency, the flexed arm hang for arm and shoulder girdle strength, the shuttle run for speed and agility, the situps for strength and endurance of the abdominal muscles, and the standing long jump for the "explosive muscle power of leg extensions". The test was updated in 1973 to promote an individual's improvement against earlier performance in addition to the program awards, and the 300-yard run was eliminated.

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