Sports drop-out could begin as young as 7 years old
The value of participating in sport from a young age is something that is not restricted to those who go on to achieve success at the top level. Aside from a very small percentage, most people who take up a sport never go on to reach the elite standard, but yet the value of being involved in a team or an individual sporting activity cannot be questioned. Unfortunately, we see that too many young athletes give up sport at an early age and therefore they miss out on the benefits that it provides. It has been stated that the drop-out rate becomes most noticeable in adolescent years, and in particular among girls. However, a recent study suggests that the problem could start at a much younger age. The alarming view that the decrease in activity levels could begin as young as seven is put forward in Timing of the decline in physical activity in childhood and adolescence: Gateshead Millennium Cohort Study published in the British Journal of Sports Medicine. The findings serve as a warning for the need to ensure young children are encouraged not only to take up exercise but to retain the habit right through to adulthood, no matter what level.
The value of sport
We are reminded in an article in Truesport.org entitled What we stand to lose in our obsession to win that the benefits of taking part in sport extend way beyond exercise and are critical in the overall development of a young person.
A growing body of research literature finds that in addition to improved physical health, sport plays a primarily positive role in youth development, including improved academic achievement, higher self-esteem, fewer behavioural problems and better psychosocial
The article sums up the sentiment of many other related articles by referring sport enhancing the five “Cs”:-
- Competence
- Confidence
- Connections
- Character
- Caring
as being vital to youth development. This development is greatly enhanced by:-
- the discipline of training
- team-work
- following instructions of coaches and
- learning to lose
which provide lifelong skills.
We have also seen in previous blogs that exercise is vital in the battle against obesity and psychological well-being. As a result it is clear that the benefits of being involved in sport are multiple, and the findings of this report underline the importance of tackling the issues that lead to drop-out from an early age. The decline in participation often emanates from the fact that the participants no longer see their sport as a fun experience and this can be for a variety of reasons.
These include:-
- too much emphasis on winning
- perhaps the individual is not improving
- not enough game time
- unrealistic expectations from parents or
- burn out as a result of early specializtation
Figure 4: Reasons Why You No Longer Play Sport from What we lose in our obsession to win
Study aim and method
The obvious problems of youth drop-out led the researches to conduct the study to investigate the possibility of the problem arising at an age earlier than previously thought as they aimed to “describe the timing of changes in physical activity across childhood and adolescence, to identify when changes take place”. Participants were from the Gateshead Millennium Cohort Study (GMS) in the north of England and the study involved a total of 545 individuals providing data to the researchers. Habitual physical activity measurements in the cohort began when participants were 7 years of age (October 2006 to December 2007), and were repeated at 9 years of age (October 2008 to September 2009), 12 years of age (October 2011 to December 2012) and 15 years of age (September 2014 to September 2015). The main conclusion of the study was that the total volume of physical activity is already declining by age seven years in the United Kingdom, while it challenges the notion that tackling drop out among adolescent girls should be the priority.
Their findings are summed up as follows:
- Physical activity declines markedly during childhood, and the age-related decline does not begin at adolescence
- The physical activity decline from childhood occurs in both boys and girls
- Physical activity decline is not uniform — a small but significant minority of boys maintained relatively high and stable levels of moderate-to-vigorous intensity physical activity across childhood and adolescence
Results provide warning for future
As a result of their research, the authors suggest that their findings should be taken into consideration when policy decisions are being made in relation to children’s health.
The main implication of our findings for future research and public health policy in physical activity and health is the need for a much greater emphasis on childhood rather than adolescence, and on both boys and girls
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About Metrifit
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References
Timing of the decline in physical activity in childhood and adolescence: Gateshead Millennium Cohort Study by Mohammed Abdulaziz Farooq, Kathryn N Parkinson, Ashley J Adamson, Mark S Pearce, Jessica K Reilly, Adrienne R Hughes, Xanne Janssen, Laura Basterfield, John J Reilly
What We Stand to Lose in Our Obsession to Win | Truesport.org
The Gateshead Millennium Cohort Study
Young players just want to have fun | Metrifit
Sport plays a vital role in tackling childhood obesity | Metrifit
Dropout in Youth Sport | Metrifit
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