Only 8% of school age Canadian students meet the recommended daily goal of more than 60 minutes of moderate-to-vigorous physical activity. Youth mental health problems have doubled over the past 2 decades. As family life represents a primary vehicle for child growth and development, lifestyle movement habits are learned in early childhood. As such, one hopes that “as twig is bent, so is the tree inclined.”
Unfortunately, there is little evidence on the benefits associated with childhood opportunities for male and female participation in sport and active leisure. Coaches, officials, volunteers, and athletes need this kind of research to show why sport is important. People like parents, teachers, school principals, and municipal, provincial and territorial, and federal government need it to decide to invest in childhood sport.
Previous research has largely been cross-sectional in nature (meaning a single snapshot in time), typically focused on early adolescents, and hasn’t looked at how sport participation changes over time. This created important gaps in knowledge. As a result, we wanted to look at how being involved in sport or active leisure (structured by a coach or instructor) as a child might affect mental and social development in adolescence. Benefits for mental health and better achievement prospects are among the new insights offered.
People inside and outside sport should care about this because there is a pandemic of (1) poor mental health, (2) underachievement, and (3) sedentariness in Canadian youth. Our research offers a wholesome way to counter these risks through sport and active leisure participation between kindergarten and fourth grade.
Our position as multidisciplinary researchers remains that sport should be offered as an extracurricular activity by every family and at every school, regardless of socio-economic and socio-cultural background.
Key findings
Our study looked at almost 2,000 children (907 girls and 952 boys) from Quebec. We asked their mothers if their children participated in sport or other organized physical activities with a coach or instructor when they were between the ages of 6 and 10. Then, we looked at the children’s mental health and school performance from ages 12 to 17. We made sure to consider other factors like family life that might also affect how the kids were doing.
Here are some important things we found:
- Kids who regularly took part in sport or active leisure activities had better emotional well-being.
- Being involved in physical activities at a young age was linked to doing better in school later on.
- Children who stayed active from kindergarten to fourth grade made healthier lifestyle choices by sixth grade.
- Being involved in sport or active leisure activities was linked to better physical health and academic success.
- Being active in sport or physical activities after school can affect how kids feel and may help with stress or upset feelings.
- Regular participation in organized sport when younger may decrease the likelihood of behaviour problems later on.
- Early involvement in sport, like in kindergarten, could lead to having a healthy weight and being strong as kids grow up.
- Kids who play sport are more likely to have big dreams for their future and less likely to struggle in school.
- For girls, regular participation in sport may lower the chances of having symptoms of ADHD later on, but this effect is not as clear for boys.
Strengths and limitations
Our research suggests that encouraging kids to participate in sport or active leisure activities from a young age could help them do better in school and feel better mentally as they grow up. However, our study has some limitations. It can’t prove that being involved in sport causes these positive outcomes. Also, we didn’t use standardized tests to measure academic achievement. But, other studies have shown that self-reported academic performance is usually reliable. Despite these limitations, our study is important because it followed kids over a long period and looked at many aspects of their lives. We also recognize that boys and girls might have different experiences with sport and physical activity, so it’s important to consider their unique needs.
Conclusions
Through sport and active leisure participation between kindergarten and fourth grade, our research shows children can have long-term benefits to their mental well-being and academic success. Middle childhood extracurricular sport participation forecasts later indicators of success in youth. Childhood sport represents a promising factor that creates developmental improvements in boys and girls. As a population-based strategy, supporting parent involvement in organized or structured physical activity in team or individual sport venues may directly translate into better health. We believe that every family and school should offer opportunities for kids to be physically active, no matter their background.
Next steps
It’s concerning that we do not have much evidence regarding things that happen in a child’s life, like family and personal factors, might affect their chances to engage in sport or stay active when they’re young. Differences in opportunities for sport and physical activities can come from family, social, and personal reasons, and these differences start early in life. Our recent studies show that boys and girls have different experiences with sport and staying active because of their bodies and the world around them. Knowing how a child’s early life and family can impact how they stay active and how it affects their health in the long run is important for us to understand better, so we can encourage more kids to join in sport and enjoy the benefits. In our next project, we’ll work with new team members and students to study how common factors in early childhood affect Canadian boys and girls who were born around the year 2000.
Funding acknowledgement: This blog draws on research supported by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council and Sport Canada as part of the Sport Participation Research Initiative.