Sports improve your overall health and provide additional benefits. You might enjoy sports because it allows you to spend time with your friends. Perhaps you enjoy sports because they keep you fit. Sports are also beneficial to your mental health. They make you happier or less stressed. Sports can help you relax your mind, strengthen your muscles, and improve your overall health. It is simple to begin participating in sports and reaping these benefits in your life.
A large-scale study of children and adolescents in the United States discovered that participation in a team sport is associated with fewer mental health difficulties, but that kids who participate solely in an individual sport, such as tennis or wrestling, may face greater mental health difficulties than kids who do no sports at all. On June 1, 2022, Matt Hoffmann of California State University, USA, and colleagues will publish their findings in the open-access journal PLOS ONE.
Previous research has consistently suggested that youth participation in organized sports may aid in the prevention of mental health problems. However, because some studies have linked youth sports participation to poor mental health, more research is needed to determine which approaches to sports may be most beneficial.
Children and adolescents who participated in only team sports, such as basketball or soccer, had fewer mental health problems than those who did not participate in any organized sports. To our surprise, youth who only participated in individual sports like gymnastics or tennis had more mental health problems than those who did not participate in organized sports.
Hoffmann
To shed new light, Hoffmann and colleagues analyzed data on the sports habits and mental health of 11,235 kids aged 9 to 13. Parents and guardians reported on several aspects of the children’s mental health by filling out a form known as the Child Behavior Checklist. The researchers looked for any associations between the mental health data and the kids’ sports habits, while also accounting for other factors that might impact mental health, such as household income and overall physical activity.
In line with the researchers’ expectations, the analysis showed that kids involved in team sports were less likely to have signs of anxiety, depression, withdrawal, social problems, and attention problems.
Individual sports were also expected to be associated with fewer mental health problems, albeit to a lesser extent than team sports. They discovered, however, that children who only played individual sports had more mental health issues than those who did not play sports at all. Nonetheless, for female children, participation in both team and individual sports was associated with a lower likelihood of rule-breaking behavior than non-sports participation.
Overall, these findings add to a growing body of evidence that participating in team sports is associated with improved mental health in children and adolescents. Further research, according to the authors, could help clarify the link they observed between individual sports and worse mental health difficulties, and longitudinal observations are required
The authors continue: “Children and adolescents who participated in only team sports, such as basketball or soccer, had fewer mental health problems than those who did not participate in any organized sports. To our surprise, youth who only participated in individual sports like gymnastics or tennis had more mental health problems than those who did not participate in organized sports.”
