Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: THURSDAY, May 10, 1990                   TAG: 9005100582
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL                    PAGE: A/1   EDITION: EVENING 
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: WASHINGTON                                LENGTH: Medium

BUSH URGES POOR TO GET PHYSICALLY FIT

"Even someone who is not having it so good can stay physically fit," Bush said in a session with health and fitness writers at the White House.

"I think that anybody can participate in certain kinds of fitness," said Bush, who gave the interview on Tuesday as part of his efforts to promote National Fitness Month.

"Yes, there's differences," he acknowledged. "Some can afford snappy LifeCycles or Stairmasters and afford to go to health clubs, and plenty of people can't.

"But the concept of an individual doing some kind of athletics or some kind of calisthenics to stay fit transcends economic lines, it seems to me," Bush told reporters.

Bush said he and his fitness czar, actor-bodybuilder Arnold Schwarzenegger, want to debunk the notion that only the fiscally fit have the time or means to worry about exercise.

The president, who turns 66 next month, has an array of expensive exercise equipment for his personal use a few steps from the Oval Office, not to mention a horseshoe pit, heated pool and tennis court nearby.

Bush captained the baseball team at Yale and has played tennis and golf all his life. He still jogs three times a week for two miles at a "slowpoke" 9 1/2-min- . . . the concept of an individual doing some kind of athletics or some kind of calisthenics to stay fit transcends economic lines, it seems to me. President Bush ute pace. The 6-foot-2 president said he is about 5 pounds overweight.

Bush credits all this exercise with helping him keep up a daily 7 a.m.-to-6 p.m. schedule in the Oval Office, plus "two or three other events" at home in the evenings.

"I don't believe I could do that if I weren't physically fit," he told interviewers.

"People think, `What's this Ivy League elitist doing playing horseshoes? This is some put-on deal,' " Bush said. "But now they know I like it and, as Arnold can attest, I'm reasonably good."

Bush acknowledged he came from a privileged background where competitive sports were part of growing up.

"I'm not suggesting that everybody's had it so good," he said. "But I am suggesting that an example of an athletic presidency can set a tone for this concept of fitness that Arnold and I are working together on."

The writers pressed the president on what he planned to do for Americans who cannot afford to see a doctor. An estimated 30 million Americans, most in working poor families, have no health insurance.

Bush said Health and Human Services Secretary Louis Sullivan is searching for ways "to get control of costs. And if we can do that, I think that will expand services."

Asked if health care should be a basic right for all citizens, he said: "I would think so, yes. But that doesn't mean that I think the federal government is the only way to do it."

"All levels of government" must be involved, plus charitable care and "neighbor helping neighbor," Bush said.