FITNESS TESTS SHOW KIDS TOO SEDENTARY.

Byline: PATRICIA FARRELL AIDEM Staff Writer

SANTA CLARITA -- As thousands lined up Friday to buy the latest video game system, the state released results of physical fitness tests at California schools that show kids spend too much time sitting and not enough time exercising.

The annual fitness exams, which test aerobic capacity, body composition, flexibility and abdominal, trunk extension and upper body strength, were given last year to public-school students in the fifth, seventh and ninth grades.

While Santa Clarita Valley students are in better shape than kids throughout the state and county, there is much room for improvement, according to the data compiled by the state Department of Education.

``These numbers tell us that too many of our students are leading sedentary lives exacerbated by poor eating habits,'' state schools Superintendent Jack O'Connell said in a press release. ``This is a destructive trend that has resulted in an epidemic of childhood obesity and must be reversed.''

In the William S. Hart Union High School District, just 36 percent of ninth graders and 37.4 percent of seventh graders proved fit in all of six categories, including aerobic capacity and body composition. That compares to 29.6 percent of California's seventh graders and 27.4 percent of ninth graders; and 25.1 percent of seventh graders in Los Angeles County, 23.1 percent of ninth graders.

Among local fifth graders, 40 percent in the Newhall School District district met the six standards; 35.1 percent in the Saugus Union School District; 32.6 in Sulphur Springs School District; and 47.6 percent in the Castaic Union School District.

That compared to 25.6 in the state; 23.6 in the county.

Fitness results for individual schools, districts, counties and the state are available at http://data1.cde.ca.gov/dataquest/.

pat.aidem(at)dailynews.com

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