The lead in to this Ft. Worth Star Telegram article is a dead giveaway that Texas legislators are in a “throw the money around” mood as they near the end of the legislative session:

Many Texas students are too fat, experts say, and face future health problems because of their poor fitness. This week, the Legislature may weigh whether a new annual fitness test can help whip them into better shape. Fitness guru Dr. Kenneth Cooper of Dallas teamed up with Sen. Jane Nelson, R-Lewisville, to author legislation that would require schools to monitor students’ health to prevent childhood obesity . . .
According to the bill, students in kindergarten through fifth grade must have ìmoderate or vigorous” activity for 30 minutes each day. Students in grades six, seven and eight must have physical activity 30 minutes a day for four semesters. Additionally, schools must annually assess the physical fitness of students in grades three through eight. Under the legislation, the Texas Education Agency would be asked to adopt a testing tool that measures aerobic capacity, body composition, muscular strength, endurance and flexibility.
According to the bill, the TEA must also analyze the data for a correlation between physical fitness and academic achievement, attendance, disciplinary problems and obesity . . .
The wording in the bill that describes the required testing tool mirrors language on the Web site for Cooper’s FitnessGram, developed in 1982 to measure health and fitness levels of children . . . The FitnessGram would cost about $230 for each child when purchased from its distributor, Human Kinetics. The nonprofit Cooper Institute receives $30 from each sale.

Sandy Szwarc nicely sums up the skimpy clinical evidence upon which the above-described legislation is based:

The bottom line was that [Harvard School of Public Health] researchers were not able to clearly establish a direction between fitness and overweight. Meaning, the slightly lower levels of athleticism among heavier children didnít necessarily point to that as being the cause for their size, nor that trying to turn them into better athletes will make them slimmer.
There is no credible evidence that the levels of physical activity and fitness among fat children are less than thinner kids to explain their diversity in sizes. There is no credible evidence that school or after-school physical activity programs reduce obesity among children. The medical evidence long ago demonstrated that heredity and genes account for aerobic capacity, upper body strength and athletic prowess. Researchers have also found that different children have different physical aptitudes, just like academic and artistic abilities. Research, for example, in the journal of the North Association for the Study of Obesity, Obesity Research, found that ìobeseî and nonobese school kids had similar levels of physical activity, while nonobese boys engaged in more sports. The fat children did poorer on propulsion tasks, but showed greater grip strength and similar scores with the other kids on overall fitness.