Children’s Mental Health Week — the Power of Sport
This week is Children’s Mental Health Week. Sadly, one in eight children and young people have a diagnosable mental health condition. Girls are identified as a high risk group with high rates of mental disorder and self-harm
The theme of this year’s Children’s Mental Health Week is Find your Brave. Bravery isn’t about coping alone or holding things in. It’s about finding positive ways to deal with things that might be difficult, overcoming physical and mental challenges and looking after yourself. Bravery can be about sharing worries and asking for help, trying something new or pushing yourself outside your comfort zone.
To support children’s mental health, parents, teachers and caregivers play an important role. In this blog, we want to discuss the issues surrounding girls not participating in enough sport or physical activity, which is a contributor to their poor mental health. We consider this to be a serious issue which is one of the reasons why we created our global campaign, ‘We are Girls in Sport’. We want to encourage more girls to find a sport they enjoy and to reap the mental health benefits.
Our Girls — The State of the Nation
Girls are facing more mental health problems and report feeling less confident, less happy and increasingly concerned with their appearance. Girls’ health and wellbeing is deteriorating and unless we take action now, these negative issues will have a significant impact on them and the women they’ll become. According to an article published in The Independent in 2018, “there is a direct correlation between girls’ future life chances and the amount of physical activity they do in their younger years.”
Image courtesy Unsplash
In addition,
· A recent report published on Women in Sport stated that boys aged between 8–15 spend almost twice as much time doing sport activities as girls of the same age, according to new figures from the Office for National Statistics (ONS).
· More figures reveal that girls are less likely to participate in sports activities than boys, with a daily participation rate of 26%, compared with 39% for 8–15 year old males.
· Of the girls that participate, they spend an average of 25 minutes a day on sports activities, compared with 40 minutes for boys. All this despite the fact that girls who participated in sports felt the same level of enjoyment as boys.
Sport can be a powerful force to support girls on their journey to being happy, healthy and self-assured young women but to do so, we must start to challenge our thinking in this area, to create solutions that will have a long-lasting and sustainable impact on girls’ lives.
What can we do about girls’ mental health?
We know sport provides girls with significant health and wellbeing benefits. Simply getting involved in sport can help our girls meet friends and have fun. But we know it can do so much more — developing life skills, a sense of pride from achieving goals and improved confidence as well as a way to let off steam when the pressure builds and improved health into adulthood (less likely to smoke, develop breast cancer or osteoporosis).
Image credit Unsplash
3 Ways to Encourage Girls to take up Sport
We know from research that being physically active is positively associated with a variety of physical, mental and social health outcomes and research highlights that physically active children are more likely to be active and healthy adults. Too many girls are also developing negative attitudes towards sport and physical activity which sometimes stops them taking part.
1. Find a club that supports their passion
You might have to look outside of school to find a youth club or group offering a sport that your daughter might find interesting. There is less access to sport for girls which may mean that you have to look a little harder and ask around but it will be worth it! If your daughter is shy, she can always ask to go to watch a few times before having a try herself. Also, going with a friend is a great way to overcome initial nerves.
2. Offer choice
Not every girl wants to play netball or hockey! By giving girls a choice, you make it easier for them to become active on their own terms. There is such a wide range of sporting activities from street dance to boxing or fencing — often these sports offer free trial sessions. Help them find something they will grow to love.
3. Show them where sport can take them
We know not everyone is going to be an Olympic athlete, but sport gives girls so much with regards to self-confidence, teamwork skills and building new friendships. Being part of a team, for example, is such an important building block for their future.
In summary, we need to come together to raise awareness of the issues around girls’ mental health and how sport and physical activity can help. We are Girls in Sport is here to show girls the power of sport, how life changing it can be and the variety of sports on offer. We want to show girls that there is always something new to try. To feel inspired. To discover activities and give girls the opportunity to share their stories with others.
Please support our We are Girls in Sport campaign by following us on social media as well as sharing this message with others. I hope that together, we can get even more girls to enjoy sport, allowing them to feel the benefits of a sporting habit for life.
Jo x
Learn more: www.childrensmentalhealthweek.org.uk
@wearegirlsinsport