The Philanthropic Collaborative for a Healthy Georgia launched the Georgia Youth Fitness Assessment (GYFA) to study fitness and physical activity in our youth, as part of its effort to identify ways to reverse the trends in childhood obesity and sedentary behavior in our state. The GYFA gives participating students and their parents feedback on an individual child’s health, while also providing school officials and policymakers with an accurate picture of fitness levels among Georgia’s children and youth.

The results are based on the 5,045 students who participated in the fitness testing and the 4,876 students who took the physical activity survey; results are drawn from 93 randomly selected public and private schools statewide. The GYFA utilized the FITNESSGRAM®, a comprehensive set of health-related physical fitness tests. The GYFA also gathered information on the student’s physical activity level for the 3-day period prior to the assessment and the physical education and food service programs at the participating schools. The Georgia Health Policy Center serves as the administrative home of the Philanthropic Collaborative for a Healthy Georgia and coordinates the research.