Their Majesties King Abdullah and Queen Rania on Tuesday honoured the winners of the King Abdullah II Award for Physical Fitness.

Thousands of students greeted King Abdullah and Queen Rania upon their arrival at Prince Hamzah Hall in Al Hussein Sports City and sang national songs, while athletes performed some of the programme's sport activities.

The King and Queen awarded medals and trophies to the winners, among them, Their Royal Highnesses Princesses Iman and Salma, who achieved high marks during the evaluation stages, in addition to schools which won first place.

More than 550,000 students from 2,438 schools took part in the Royal initiative, which seeks to encourage young people to become more physically active and lead healthier lifestyles.

The King and Queen signed a map of Jordan featuring schools across the Kingdom which participated in the competition.

At a press conference held after the award ceremony, Minister of Education Tayseer Nueimi expressed appreciation for the support of the King and Queen.

"We owe everything to the efforts of Their Majesties to support the award which has given us the will to develop and implement the programme on a larger scale to include a majority of the Kingdom's schools," he said.

Currently, 83 per cent of the Kingdom's schools are part of the programme.
"The sixth season of the award illustrated the students’ achievements… which affected their educational and physical levels in a positive way," Nueimi added.

Students aged from nine to 17 representing government, private, military and UNRWA schools participated in the programme, which comprises five fitness exercises: push-ups, sit-ups, flexibility tests, shuttle runs and endurance runs.

The programme is organised by the Ministry of Education in collaboration with the Royal Health Awareness Society (RHAS) and the Ministry of Planning and International Cooperation.

RHAS Chairman Rami Farraj told reporters that Jordanian standards need to be established for the programme as “studies showed that the level of students reached a higher degree which will contribute positively to society”.

The King Abdullah II Award for Physical Fitness was established in 2005 as a school-based national initiative that targets young people who comprise one-third of the population.

The programme promotes physical fitness and healthy lifestyle choices among young Jordanians in order to combat the rising incidence of lifestyle-related diseases, such as diabetes and hypertension, as well as obesity.