Just 19.8% of U.S. high school students attended physical education class on all five days of an average school week in 2025, down from 27.4% in 2023, according to a CDC report on teen diet and activity dated Oct. 15 in the Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report. Daily PE was the only one of 11 diet and activity behaviors in the report that declined over the two-year comparison.
The figures come from the national Youth Risk Behavior Survey, which collected usable answers from 10,710 students in grades 9 through 12. The survey's overall response rate was 30.6%, the lowest in its history, according to the CDC's survey overview, so the results should be read with some caution.
