Montgomery Center for Research in Child and Adolescent Development

Sports

(with special attention to girls)

Question: what are the best sports for girls to play? Are some sports better than others?
Answer: Without a doubt, some sports are better than others. The most dangerous sports -- for mind and body -- are those which promote the well-known "dancer's triad" consisting of 1) disordered eating and obsession with thinness, 2) amenorrhea (as a result of inadequate body fat) and 3) osteoporosis (as a result of being too thin and of the hormonal disruption associated with amenorrhea). Sports which promote the "dancer's triad" include girls (and women's) gymnastics, as well as ballet and modern dance. Other sports can, but need not, promote the dancer's triad. For instance, in cheerleading some girls are the "tossers" and other girls are "the ones who are tossed." If the coach is not familiar with the dancer's triad, she may encourage the girls being tossed to get as skinny as possible, so that the "tossers" can throw them higher, and impress the judges more.

Question: OK, so gymnastics and dance have the greatest potential for harm. What sports have the greatest potential for good?
Answer: The best sports, for girls, are those which focus on what you do instead of how you look. Ice hockey is a better choice than figure skating. Soccer is a better choice than cheerleading. Basketball and field hockey are also good choices.

Question: OK, so you like soccer, basketball, field hockey and ice hockey. Those are all contact sports. Don't those sports promote aggression?
Answer: Dawn Stephens and Brenda Bredemeier at the University of Iowa studied this question specifically with regard to soccer. They found that aggressiveness was primarily a function of the coach's style. If the coach encouraged violent, aggressive play, then the kids played that way. The coach has an enormous influence. (Journal of Sport & Exercise Psychology, June 1996, 18(2):158-173.)

Question: what's the impact of sports on risky behaviors, such as smoking, drinking, and sexual activity?
Answer: There's a tremendous amount of research on this topic. The results are remarkably consistent internationally. Participation in team sports such as soccer, basketball, and field hockey dramatically reduces the likelihood that a teenage girl will smoke, drink, or be involved in sexual activity. (These findings do not hold for boys, particularly with regard to sexual activity; whereas teenage girl athletes are much less likely than other girls to be sexually active, teenage boy athletes are slightly more likely to be sexually active than other boys.) For example, Deborah Aaron, Robyn Anderson, and their associates at the University of Pittsburgh found that the more time a girl spent involved in sports, the less likely she was to smoke cigarettes, drink alcohol, or use marijuana. (Medicine & Science in Sports & Exercise, December 1995, 27(12):1639-1645)

Question: what's the effect of competitive team sports, such as soccer, on self-esteem? Don't there have to be losers? Don't those girls experience a decline in self-esteem?
Answer: In fact, few activities build self-esteem in teenage girls more effectively than participation in team sports. Wendy Delany and Christina Lee at the University of Newcastle studied this question. They found that the more girls participated in sports, particularly competitive sports, the higher their self-esteem was likely to be. (Australian Psychologist, July 1995, 30(2):84-87)

Likewise, Donald Sabo, Kathleen Miller, and their colleagues in Buffalo have found that "athletic participation is directly related to reduced frequency of sexual behavior and, indirectly, to pregnancy risk for girls." If you're not having sex, you're less likely to get pregnant! (Journal of Adolescent Health, September 1999, 25(3):207-216; this paper was a replication of their earlier study showing the same results in Journal of Health & Social Behavior, June 1998, 39(2):108-123.)

Karen Stein and Kristen Hedger at the University of Michigan discovered something remarkable. Girls who don't participate in competitive team sports tend to worry about their body, think they're too fat, go on diets, etc. Girls who do participate in team sports have higher self-esteem and don't worry about their weight . . . even after controlling for weight! In other words: suppose you have two girls: they're both 5'5" and 130 pounds. One girl does lots of sports, the other girl doesn't do any sports. They both weigh the same and they're the same height. Stein & Hedger found that the 130-pound girl who doesn't do sports is likely to be convinced that she's obese, go on diets all the time, and have generally low self-esteem. The 130-pound girl who does sports is much less likely to waste time on any of that, because her self-esteem is much higher. The athlete's self-esteem isn't built on how they look but on what they can do. (As a point of medical fact, a 5'5" girl who weighs 130 pounds is NOT overweight.) Archives of Psychiatric Nursing, October 1997, 11(5):264-275.)

There are, of course, many other benefits associated with competitive team sports. For example, Norwegian researchers have found that girls who participate in competitive sports sleep better than girls who aren't involved in athletics. (Perceptual & Motor Skills, December 1991, 73(3 Part 1):883-892.)

As a general rule -- replicated in dozens of studies worldwide over the past 20 years -- girls' self-esteem takes a nosedive during the adolescent years. You might call this the Reviving Ophelia phenomenon, since Mary Pipher popularized this notion in her 1994 book on this topic. What Dr. Pipher neglected to mention is that participation in competitive team sports almost completely negates (or prevents) this drop in self-esteem.

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