You may have seen my recent blog on the ASICS State of Mind Index which among other things, found that age 15-17 was the key age for an association with later life wellbeing. Of concern, we see much lower levels of physical activity in youth compared to older generations when they were younger. For instance, the ASICS State of Mind Index found that 19% of Gen Z engaged in daily physical activity versus 57% of the silent generation.
This leaves us with the question, what can be done about the low levels of physical activity and record levels of poor mental health?
Well, the good news is that according to our recent research, a lot can be done to make a meaningful impact on the mental health of youth.
What did we do in our research?
We found and synthesised all the randomised trials that investigated the influence of physical activity interventions for youth mental health in schools. We believe schools are an ideal place to make a positive difference for young people to have positive experiences with physical activity. We identified 31 studies which investigated increasing physical activity through increased physical education, sport, yoga, playground medications and promoting choice in physical activity in the young people.
Of interest, we found that providing the school-based sport had a significant and important improvement on:
Improved resilience (Hedges’ g = 0.748, 95% CI = 0.326; 1.170, p = 0.001);
Improved mental health (Hedges’ g = 0.405, 95% CI = 0.208; 0.603, p = < 0.001),
Improved well-being (Hedges’ g = 0.877, 95% CI = 0.356; 1.398, p = < 0.001)
Reduced anxiety (Hedges’ g = 0.347, 95% CI = 0.072; 0.623, p = 0.013).
For me with this and other pieces of research, it is a no brainer to really focus on ensuring that sport plays a role in all young people’s lives. This does not need to be the traditional PE lessons – we really need to empower children to find a sport/activity they like and allow them to not be amazing at one sport and feel confident to go away and try another one.
Do you agree that sport should play a key role in improving the mental health of youth in schools?
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