---

Guest post by: Dr. Jack Singer Become an Author

Tweet

---

---

Most parents want their children to participate in sports because they participated and enjoyed the exercise, commaraderie and healthy competition. But now, a new study shows a major advantage for young teens, that goes well beyond the benefits we all believed about sports participation.

A recent study reported in Science Daily and conducted by Dr. Keith Zullig and Rebecca White from West Virginia University shows that middle-school teenagers who are physically active and play on sports teams are more satisfied with their life and feel healthier.

These findings are critical because many studies coming out lately point to the extreme stress levels and depression that teens of all ages in the U.S. experience these days. The cause is listed as a result of extreme stress on families from economic realities these days and the rippling effect on the children.

The authors explored the relationship between physical activity (including sports participation), life satisfaction and self-rated health concurrently, for the first time, among 245 middle school students in grades 7 and 8.

Interestingly, for boys, participation in vigorous activity had no effect on either life satisfaction or self-rated health; however, In girls, those who had taken part in vigorous activity in the last week were significantly more satisfied with their life compared to girls who had not, but participation in vigorous activity had no effect on their self-rated health.

Playing on a sports team was linked to higher life satisfaction in both boys and girls. In addition, boys were five times more likely, and girls 30 times more likely, to describe their health as fair/poor when they were not playing on a sports team.

The authors concluded: "Our study demonstrates the benefits of youth sports participation on self-rated health and life satisfaction among young youth at a critical juncture in adolescent development. Our findings suggest that sports team participation may enhance school connectedness, social support and bonding among friends and teammates."

Related Articles

  Teamwork
  Is a Lost Sale Better for Salespeople Than a Win?
  Does Business Growth Trump Social Responsibility?
  Five Undeniable Laws of Leadership
  Marketers can learn a lot from the Green Bay Packers: America’s Team
  3 Ways to Boost Team Spirit and Attendance with Inflatables
  Lesson #3: Promote Your Products
  Are you a coach or just a cheerleader?
  The Tebow Question
  Four Traits Of Effective Team Members
  "Drive ONE"
  Do You Believe In Miracles? Olympic Gold for Teamwork and Motivation
  Lesson #5: Expand When Necessary
  Turning Your Love of Track and Field into Your Life
  Ferrari Turns His Dream Into a Dream for Others
  Increase Employee Productivity with Coaching
  In His Own Footsteps: The Early Years of Philip Knight
  Super Stars Don't Make the Team
  Dumb Jocks … Or Smart Athletes?
  Advertising and Community Relations -- Get the Best of Both Worlds

Referred by: http://virtualassistantindustry.com/

Related Forum Posts

Re: Anyone Uses Elance.com? Guru.com? Rentacoder.com?
Re: Discover 5 Traps of Internet Marketing that Derail Business
Re: What would you ask a famous entrepreneur?
Re: FILL IN THE BLANK: One thing I did to grow my business today
How Many Hours A Week Do You Watch TV?

Share this article. Fund someone's dream.

Newsletter

Get advice & tips from famous business
owners, new articles by entrepreneur
experts, my latest website updates, &
special sneak peaks at what's to come!

Name:
Email:

Popular Articles

The Every Mans Guide to Incredible Wealth

Five Positive Traits to Enhance Flexibility

How to get rid of the employee that doesn’t fit

Suggestions

Email us your ideas on how to make our
website more valuable! Thank you Sharon
from Toronto Salsa Lessons / Classes for
your suggestions to make the newsletter
look like the website and profile younger
entrepreneurs like Jennifer Lopez.