How Sports Benefit Children, Essay Example

Each parent is responsible for his or her child’s well-being and happiness. By taking the responsibility for bringing up a child, parents also take the responsibility for the future consequences of their actions and educational methods applied. Every single day, parents are dealing with the number of problems such as their child’s lack of responsibility and discipline, laziness, inability to perform team tasks, and lack of communication skills. Health problems are always at hand, as well. Surprisingly, the solution to all the aforementioned problems can be found if parents recognize and acknowledge the benefits that participating in sports can bring into their children’s lives. The present paper will organize the results of recent sports research that prove the significance and usefulness of youth sports involvement. To be more specific, doing sports provides children, and their parents, with three groups of benefits. These are physical benefits, social benefits and emotional benefits. There are also unique benefits for girls, which will be discussed at the end of this paper.

In particular, the physical benefits of participating in sports will be emphasized as the research informs us of the increasing rate of obesity and the negative health effects associated with this condition.  Studies show that children that are more active are less likely to be overweight and suffer from these effects. It has also been shown that “unorganized sports” may hold the key to combating this problem. In addition, active children are more likely to develop healthy habits that will benefit them physically throughout their lives.  In terms of social benefits, I will outline several positive effects, including improved peer relations and greater leadership skills. The literature also suggests that active children are better able to deal with rules and competitive situations, communicate better with members of their peer groups, and learn the value of teamwork. Emotionally, children involved in sports feel a sense of accomplishment, demonstrate moods that are more positive, and experience less stress. Finally, girls seem to reap the most benefits from sport involvement, in that they develop greater self-confidence. The research demonstrates that girls involved in sports have higher self-esteem.

Physical Benefits

The significance of physical activity such as team sports is as undeniable as ever due to the sad statistics indicating that, nowadays, growing numbers of children are becoming obese. This statistic is alarming to hear, taking into account the fact that the number of overweight adolescents in America has almost tripled in the past 20 years.

For example, according to Franzini et al. (2009), obesity has been on the rise over the past decades. Specifically, the number of overweight children aged 6-11 in 1980 was only 6.5%, while the number recorded in 2004 was a whopping 18.8%.. According to Franzini’s study, this growing problem can easily be solved if children could just increase their level of physical activity. Franzini and his colleagues collected information on 650 grade 5 students from urban, American public schools. They measured their height and weight in order to calculate their Body Mass Index (BMI). They categorized students in the 85th-94th percentile as “overweight” and categorized the students with BMI’s above the 95th percentile as “obese”. In addition, students were given a Youth Risk Behavior Survey developed by the American Center for Disease Control and Prevention in order to measure their level of physical activity. This was done using a face to face interview, where students had to list the number of days they did vigorous exercise for at least twenty minutes, the number of days they did moderate exercise for at least thirty minutes, the number of days they participated in a physical education class, the number of sports teams they participated in over the past twelve months, and any other organized physical activities they were involved in. Their study concluded that there was a negative connection between amount of physical activity and obesity. In simple terms, the more active students were the least overweight.

This type of research has also been supported by Ahmad (2003), who stated that any kind of activity, besides watching television, would be helpful to children who want to fight obesity. Ahmad states that there is a distinct connection between the number of hours a child spends watching television and the probability of obesity. He described one Canadian study of 3000 children that showed that kids who watched between three and five hours of television a day were 50% more likely to be obese than kids who watched two hours or less. In fact, Ahmad even says that “unorganized” sports, like street hockey, are the best sports for children because, unlike most team sports, the kids aren’t sitting on the bench waiting for their turn. In this case, they are always moving, so this burns more calories and helps children fight obesity more effectively.

A number of untimely diseases that young children suffer from are part of contemporary reality. Is it normal that a girl of ten suffers from obesity? Do we really have to accept the situation when an overweight child grows into an obese adult, and eventually suffers from a range of connected illnesses such as heart disease, type 2 diabetes, stroke, several types of cancer, and osteoarthritis?

For example, according to Abelson and Kennedy (2004), there are many serious effects of being overweight and the number of overweight American people is always increasing. Specifically, in 1998, the American National Institute of Health did a survey and found that 55% of the American population was considered obese or overweight and now experts estimate that this number may even be closer to 66%. As a result of this disastrous situation, Abelson and Kennedy state that many overweight people are getting diabetes, heart disease, and cancer.

Why not to prevent your one and only child from suffering from problems that can truly spoil his or her future adult life? Look at the seventeen-year boys and girls that have to deal with inferiority complexes and constant lack of self-confidence. Are they truly happy? Do they not regret avoiding sport activities in childhood? What would they do now to attain a beautiful, physically fit, and healthy body? And while they suffer from the consequences of their sedentary lifestyles, individuals who participate in team sports burn calories by exercising, being able to both prevent and fight any weight problems that may occur.

When discussing physical benefits, we surely mean health improvement. By participating in sports, children naturally develop general physical fitness. By maintaining a good body shape and by experiencing a growing appreciation of the good looks an athletic body provides, children acquire lasting habits for good physical health. Furthermore, participation in sports contributes to increasing attentiveness to one’s body, to its reactions and responses to various factors and situations, and thus prevents an individual from subjecting his or her body to health risks by becoming drug or alcohol-addicted. Valuing the health of one’s own body is something sport normally teaches a child to do, and that is something truly important for the development of healthy habits.

For example, according to Harrison and Narayan (2003), participating in team sports has a significant effect on healthy behavior and mental health as well. They studied 50,168 ninth grade public school students of diverse racial backgrounds using an anonymous survey. They grouped the students into four categories: kids who participated in sports and other activities, kids who participated only in sports, kids who participated in only other activities, and kids who didn’t do either type. They found that the first group, the group who did sports and other activities, had the highest level of healthy behavior. “Healthy behaviors” included exercising, drinking milk, having a good self-image, and doing their homework. The first group also had the lowest levels of unhealthy behaviors. “Unhealthy behaviors” were listed as having emotional distress, suicidal behavior, drinking alcohol, smoking, doing drugs, vandalism, and skipping school. They predicted that this was because participating in sports gave the children a sense of belonging in their community and this is what protected them against these risky behaviors. In addition, girls were less likely to engage in sexual intercourse and boys were less likely to carry a weapon.

Social Benefits

Playing sports provides children with more than just physical advantages. Sports normally help kids to achieve good academic and social performance as well. Nowadays, parents are to realize that children who participate in organized sports perform better in school, develop better communicational skills, and are more team oriented. Moreover, they are normally much healthier than their peers who avoid being involved in sport games and similar activities. In fact, participation in sports presents the children with the chance for leadership, teaching them how to develop skills necessary for dealing with successes and failures. By doing sports and participating actively in team games, children are provided with socialization that is so important at the age when personality is in the process of forming.

For example, According to Eppright, Sanfacon, Beck, and Bradley (1997), team sports can provide children with the conditions needed for appropriate development. If children stay active by participating in sports, they contend, they can keep fit and stay out of trouble. The purpose of their review of the literature was to see how participation in organized sport could benefit children. Eppright et al. stated that some of the greatest psychologists of our time, including Piaget, Freud, and Erickson, have said that playing allows children to practice their skills in a relaxing environment and it helps them to deal with negative emotions and frustrations of daily life. Many health professionals have also supported this view, saying that participation in sports boosts children’s physical as well as mental health. In their literature review, Eppright et al. used the following definition of sport:

The coordination of physical abilities and mental faculties in direct and/or indirect competition in which performance is measured. The structure of sport includes a coach and participants referred to as athletes, as well as a system of rules and scoring in which a referee or judge presides during competition. Although much of sport involves physical abilities, it also requires cognitive mental abilities such as decision making, problem solving, concentration and motivation. Sport is also inherently competitive, whether it be direct competition (two individual opponents, as in tennis, or two teams competing as in baseball) or indirect competition (competition where the athlete has no direct interaction with others, as in gymnastics or skiing) (p.74).

The researchers noted that such physical activity is necessary for children to develop strong bones, muscles, and nervous tissue. If children are inactive, it can damage their health.

While, before the age of eight, organized or competitive sport is probably unwise, after the age of eight, it can teach children teamwork, delayed gratification, increased motivation for success, confidence, and coping skills. Eppright and colleagues noted that many child athletes demonstrate strong leadership qualities by the age of ten. As adolescence can be a very difficult and emotion time in a child’s life, sport is especially important during this period. Teens who are involved in sports are usually more popular, show higher self-esteem, and are in better health than non-active teens. They receive more recognition from their peers, teachers, and parents and, as a result, demonstrate higher self-assurance and better social adjustment.

Furthermore, sport games create models of life-like situations in which children have to operate to be successful. When playing sports, children learn what the rules are and how the rules actually work. They learn to be organized by observing how a team needs to follow rules in order to keep order and perform successfully. A child realizes that he or she needs to accept and follow the set rules for the benefit of the whole group, and that rules involve a concern about the rights of other participants of the game. Children also learn what competition is, yet in a safe way that minimizes the consequences of failure and makes the participants of competition act in a restricted system, thus preventing them from displays of immorality and anger.

For example, According to Hastie and Sharpe(1999), a large number of American youth are living in poverty and have difficulty performing academically and socially. They hypothesized that sport can help teach at-risk kids a variety of skills, such as conflict resolution, leadership, responsibility, organization, fair play, and positive social behavior. They tested their hypothesis by studying twenty 7th and 8th grade boys from a rural, low-income community. Most of the boys were considered “at-risk” for negative social behaviors, given that they were not described as academically or socially successful. The researchers designed a physical education unit involving a modified football game. The unit was conducted every day over one month. The twenty boys were divided into four teams of five and the students were given various roles to play on the team over the course of the unit. The lessons were all videotaped so the researchers could study the changes in compliance, leadership, and positive and negative peer interactions between the boys.

Compliance was defined as when a student “carries out the instruction or directive of a peer captain or coach, or complies with a referee’s decision.” Leadership was defined as when a student “makes a proactive attempt to facilitate, encourage, or instruct the behavior appropriate response.” Positive peer interaction was defined as when a student “provides positive comments to a classmate following some play action or helps a player to his feet after a fall.” They found that over the 20 days, there was a significant increase in compliance and a decrease in conflict behavior. During the early lessons, there was a lot of negative peer interaction but, over time, there was a decrease in negative interaction and an increase in positive peer interaction. There were also small increases in leadership behavior displayed over the 20 days.

Another review of the literature supports this positive view of sport involvement. According to Payne and Fogarty (2007), team sports can help children grow physically, socially, and emotionally. They state that kids who play sports can learn social skills because they get to interact with their friends while they play and they can learn what “healthy competition” means. Because today’s world is filled with competition in jobs and at school, children need to learn how to compete in a positive way so they are prepared for the future. Team sports allow children to understand friendly and healthy competition and to learn to deal with success and failure. Payne and Fogarty also contend that team sports provide children with a large social benefit. That is, they get to spend time with their friends in a healthy atmosphere. This allows them to learn how to solve conflicts and how to communicate more effectively with other people.

It is important for parents to know that sports activities provide children with exceptional opportunities to achieve success and to make use of their talents. In being determined to perform productively and to achieve high results, children are harmoniously engaged in activities combining social, cognitive, and psychological skills. Sports provide children with the possibilities of regular communication with their peer groups as well as with their peers’ families. In other words, sports present children with the exciting, enjoyable, gratifying way of self-realization through participating in a larger world that sedate, young people cannot normally enter into.

As a final point, when talking about social benefits, we are referring to the improvement of communication skills as a result of sport participation. While involved in sport games, children develop relationships with other members of team. Operating as a team, they learn how collaboration, companionship, friendship and satisfaction of common interest works. Working in a team, children realize their responsibility to their teammates, and thus learn what responsibility is in general. Moreover, sports can become a significant factor making everyone equal to each other. It becomes irrelevant whether a team player is rich or poor, black, brown, or white. Children learn to understand that what is truly important is talent and heart. Through communication with their coaches and parents, sports also help children to develop positive relationships with adults. Finally, sports cultivate in children a sense of belonging to something bigger them themselves. Children learn to be a part of the community, which presents them with the possibility of feeling that they are contributing to a greater group and a greater benefit.

Emotional Benefits

Besides bearing physical benefits, participating in team sports is also conducive to the mental well-being of children. Parents should become conscious of the psychological benefits created by enrolling their child in a team sport that he or she takes pleasure in. If asking their children what they expect to gain from playing sports, the parents would probably hear something like “To have fun”, “To make new friends/to spent time with old ones”, “To win or accomplish something”. The fact is that besides all of these benefits of playing sports, children also simply enjoy learning and improving their skills. They learn to appreciate being in good physical shape. By participating and succeeding in sports, kids obtain the benefits they seek. In addition to directing their energy to activities that are fun and useful, they gain what they want so much and lack so badly – attention and admiration. Needless to say, kids have few ways of getting respect in everyday life. Sports present children with opportunities to earn both attention and respect. By exercising their natural abilities, by making use of their skills, such as speed, strength, imagination, coordination, vision, and reaction, children who perform well at sports can get the admiration they strive for.

Next, if talking about personal benefits that sports can bring, we normally refer to the impact participation in sports can have on a child’s life and mental health. First of all, sports develop self-discipline and the understanding of the importance of efforts made because children can observe the differences in results achieved. Sports also teach children to deal with disappointments resulting from misfortune. They naturally acquire a skill of being tough and becoming strong, happy, and successful again after experiencing a difficult situation or failure. Moreover, children learn to control their attitude, becoming aware of the influence it can have on their performance. They learn to be leaders, to reinforce the specific values for the whole team, to resolve the conflicts and to be an example to others. Young athletes learn how to deal with their schedules in the most efficient way possible. They learn to realize that good time management will virtually guarantee high productivity. Eventually, they learn to plan ahead and to not waste time on useless activities, which results in better performance at school. Finally, children realize that if they sacrifice an instant satisfaction, it may eventually result in long-term success, and, thus, they learn the fundamental law of long-term thinking, which can eventually become the basis of their personal success.

These points can be best demonstrated by a research study conducted by Gore, Farrell, and Gordon (2001). According to their research, team sports can serve as a protective factor against depressed mood. Due to the fact that the teen years represent a time of high stress with family, friends, and school, they hypothesized that sports could be the positive experience that teens need to provide emotional stability. They tested a representative sample of Boston teenagers (1036 student in total) for sports involvement, depression, parental support, peer support, family stress, peer stress, and GPA. To measure depression, they used the Center for Epidemiological Studies Depression Scale (20-item self-report scale). To measure sports involvement, they simply asked the student to list the athletic activities that were important to them. Their results showed that for females, not males, team sports were linked to better mood.

Another study by Boone and Leadbeater (206) showed that participating in team sports helped to lower depression symptoms in Canadian teenagers. They studied 449 Canadian students in grades eight through ten. They decided to examine the connection between sports involvement and feelings of social acceptance, body dissatisfaction, and depression. Their sample was made up of half boys and half girls, from a moderately sized, Canadian city. To measure their feelings of social acceptance, they used Harter’s Self Perception Profile for Adolescents (SPPA), which asked the students questions like “Do you make friends easily?” or “Do you have a lot of friends?” They measured body dissatisfaction by using the Body Dissatisfaction Subscale of the Self Image Questionnaire for Young Adolescents. On this questionnaire, the students were asked things like “Are you satisfied with your weight?” They measured depression using the Beck Depression Inventory. Finally, they measured team sports involvement using the Youth Self Report which required student to list the types of team sports they participated in and how many hours they participated per week. The results indicated that social acceptance was positively association with team sports involvement and negatively association with depression. Body dissatisfaction was negatively associated with team sports involvement and positively associated with depression. The researchers contended that perhaps sport gives teens the opportunity to develop their social skills, and feel a sense of belonging. They likely get more support from their peers, and coaches can serve as a positive role model and mentor to increase their feelings of social acceptance and improve their overall mental health.

It is also well known that sports are conducive to relieving stress. Sport activities help children to remove the academic and social strain and to get rid of the pressure accumulated in the body’s muscles. For example, in one naturalistic study conducted by Steptoe and Kimbell (1998), it was demonstrated that, on days that research participants exercised, they reported a more positive mood and less stressful events. They took a diary approach to test the relationship between physical activity and the evaluation of natural stressors to determine if there was a difference between the days participants exercised and the days they did not. The participants were each given a twelve-page diary, which they were to fill out each day for twelve days. They were asked to indicate whether they exercised, and if so, what type of exercise they did and for how long. They measured mood using the Profile of Mood States that tests for tension, depression, and positive mood. They were also given a Daily Stress Inventory to see how they perceived everyday stressors. The results indicated that, for the women in the study, exercise was associated with a decrease in depression, a more positive mood, and less perceived stress.

Unique Benefits for Girls

Finally, if having a daughter, parents have to be familiar with specific benefits that sports have for girls. The organizations researching the impact of sport present information report that participating in sports results in a large number of developmental benefits for girls. Those include considerable experiences of skills application and success, growing self-respect and self-confidence resulting from a nicer and healthier body image, and decreased danger of chronic disease. Moreover, young females involved in sport activities perform better at school, and have lower dropout rates than those who do not participate in sports activities. It is also believed that sports benefit girls by preventing them from becoming pregnant teenagers and from starting smoking at young age. Quite the contrary, the research proposes that sports help young females to quit smoking, they are more probable to do well in science and to graduate from educational establishments than female non-athletes. Female athletes also take larger pleasure in their physical and social activities than their inactive peers do. By being more physically active and by keeping up a good physical shape, they are less liable to suffer from depression. There are also some facts proving that physical activity reduces a woman’s risk of developing breast cancer and helps to avoid osteoporosis.

According to Pedersen and Seidman (2004), it has been demonstrated that participation in sports has appositive impact on children’s self-esteem. However, they decided to target only females and only team sport participation due to the fact that many teenage girls exhibit low self-esteem and that the collaborative aspect of team sports would likely have the largest effect on self-esteem. They studied 247 adolescent girls of diverse backgrounds from poor, urban communities. They set out to test the hypothesis that participating in team sports in the early teenage years would positively correlate with self-esteem during the middle teenage years. Pedersen and Seidman noted that past research has shown that participation in team sports can improve self-esteem and self-efficacy, can lead to closer relationships, can improve teens’ social skills, and improve academic performance. Team sports, as opposed to individual sports, is the perfect activity because it boosts feelings of competency, provides teens with a role model, and encourages teens to accomplish goals.

Pedersen and Seidman measured self-esteem with the Global Self-worth Subscale of the Self-Perception Profile for Adolescents. They measured team sports achievement by asking questions like “Have you played in a league, school team, or other organized group?” and “Have you ever won an award for a team sport?” They measure team sports self-evaluations of interest and competence by asking questions like “Compared to others your age, how good are you at team sports?” The results confirmed their hypothesis. The girls who demonstrated the most interest and achievement in sports showed the highest levels of self-esteem.

Discussion

In conclusion, it must be emphasized that the benefits and satisfactions resulting from setting and achieving goals in sports are countless. Naturally, there are also some drawbacks associated with youth sports, yet their number is noticeably smaller and comparatively insignificant. Taking into consideration the benefits mentioned in the present paper, it is clear that parents should be obliged to encourage their children to be involved in some type of sport. While the general type of sport can differ significantly, the fact that merely operating in the team environment and exercising physically can lay the foundation for a happier, healthier life is indisputable. The physical and psychological benefits related with sports are simply too evident to be ignored.

References

Abelson, P. & Kennedy, D. (2004, June). The obesity epidemic. Science, 304(5676), 1413.

Ahmad, K. (2003, August) “Unorganised” sports best for preventing childhood obesity. The Lancet, 362(9384), 627.

Boone, E.M. & Leadbeater, B.J. (2006). Game on: Diminishing risks for depressive symptoms in early adolescence through positive involvement in team sports. Journal of Research on Adolescence, 16(1), 79-90.

Eppright, T.D., Sanfacon, J.A., Beck, N.C., & Bradley, J.S. (1997). Sport psychiatry in childhood and adolescence: An overview. Child Psychiatry and Human Development, 28(2), 71-88.

Franzini, L., Elliott, M.N., Cuccaro, P., Schuster, M., Gilliland, J., Grunbaum, J.A., Franklin, F., & Tortolero, S.R. (2009). Influences of physical and social neighborhood environment on children’s physical activity and obesity. American Journal of Public Health, 99(2), 271-8.

Gore, S., Farrell, F., & Gordon, J. (2001). Sports involvement as protection against depressed mood. Journal of Research on Adolescence, 11(1), 119-30.

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Hastie, P.A. & Sharpe, T. (1999). Effects of a sport education curriculum on the positive social behavior of at-risk rural adolescent boys. Journal of Education for Students Placed at Risk, 4, 417-30.

Payne, C. & Fogarty, K. Importance of youth involvement in sports. Retrieved June 1, 2009, from University of Florida IFAS Extension Web site: http://edis.ifas.ufl.edu/FY1001

Pedersen, S. & Seidman, E. (2004). Team sports achievement and self-esteem development among urban adolescent girls. Psychology of Women Quarterly, 28, 412-22.

Steptoe, A. & Kimbell, J. (1998). Exercise and the experience and appraisal of daily stressors: A naturalistic study. Journal of Behavioral Medicine, 21(4), 363-74.