Steinfeld Makes Fitness a Priority

Palisadian Names Spotlight Winners at Governor’s Council on Physical Fitness

When it comes to physical fitness, no two men are more knowledgeable than Palisadian Jake Steinfeld and California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger. Last Tuesday at Marvin Elementary School in Los Angeles, Steinfeld was the Master of Ceremonies at the Governor’s Council on Physical Fitness and Sports Spotlight Awards Ceremony and his enthusiasm was evident the moment he took the microphone. “Do you know that over 10,000 kids took our Governor’s challenge last year?,” Steinfeld asked his audience. “And this year we traveled up and down the state, visited with schools, kids, principals, superintendents, and I’m happy to announce that over 69,000 children in California took the Governor’s Challenge.” In addition to being Chairman of the Governor’s Council on Physical Fitness and Sports, Steinfeld is the founder of major league lacrosse, Fit TV and the first ever on-demand fitness television network, Exercise TV. He is also a best selling author and Chairman of Body by Jake Global. After thanking all of the event sponsors, Steinfeld could not contain his excitement as he announced the next speaker. “I go back a long way with this man, and yes, he’s probably the greatest–well, for sure the greatest bodybuilder that’s ever lived,’ Steinfeld said. “He’s an action hero, but most importantly, this man leads with passion, not perception. He unifies people, he doesn’t divide people, and that’s what makes him not just a special man, but a great Governor. I want to introduce my good friend, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger.” With that, Schwarzenegger, a former Palisades resident, addressed the crowd of children: “Thank you very much, Jake, for the great introduction. And of course I want to say right off the top I think we owe it all to Jake, not to me, because Jake is really the one who has the energy and follows through. Every day he’s working on improving health and fitness amongst our youngsters in California. He’s done such an extraordinary job in bringing everyone together. “I have been involved in fitness my whole life. Even when I was at your age we were exercising every day back in Austria on the other side of the globe. But sports and fitness was a very important component in our whole day of education, if it was track and field, if it was soccer, if it was swimming. It was all kinds of an endless amount of different sports that we were doing. Well, then I decided to be a world champion in exercising, weightlifting and bodybuilding. I know what impact sports and fitness had on me, and how successful I became in my life because of health and fitness and because of exercising regularly. So I was convinced that I wanted to go and get that message out there to all the youngsters all over the world, but especially here in America. “I was very fortunate that 17 years ago President Bush the first appointed me to be Chairman of the President’s Council on Physical Fitness and Sports, and I traveled through all 50 states, going from school to school, state to state, to promote health and fitness and to make sure that the schools keep their P.E. teachers and keep their gymnasiums open. “Now every year we’re going to put 40 million dollars in so we can hire extra physical education teachers, because you deserve it. The only way you can get the program and the training is if we, the adults, give you the opportunities. I’m very proud that we as a state have been the first to increase the fresh fruits and vegetables in our schools, that we are the first ones to have banned junk food and sodas from our schools. Parents have to be involved, teachers have to be involved, principals have to be involved and you, the students, have to be involved. Together with the sponsors that we have, we can create a really healthy atmosphere here. California is way ahead of every other state and I think we are very proud of that.” Steinfeld took the podium again and introduced Awards Committee members Peter Vidmar (a gold-medal winning gymnast) and Lisa Fernandez (three-time Olympic softball gold medalist). Then, he announced the winners in seven different categories. Marvin Elementary finished first out of 31 schools that participated in the program.