Girls & Fitness
Earlier this week the BBC reported on a study done by the WSFF (Women’s Sport and Fitness Foundation) which found that basically, as girls mature through their teen years, they become less interested in exercise. A depressing find, sure, but hardly surprising. Needless to say, the article caused much online debate, with many women relating to the struggle to be active as a teen. It seems rather shocking that the PE classes we all remember with a degree of horror, have changed very little. So, what can be done?
Through conversations on Twitter the day the article came out, there seem to be a number of common themes.
1. Memories of poor PE classes
This is a serious issue. I’ve lost count of the number of grown women I’ve met who don’t exercise now due to bad memories of their attempts to be active in PE class at school. Being picked last for a team, made to feel as though you’re not good enough, ignored if you didn’t have the skill – all that can crush someone’s confidence and carry into later life with devastating effects.
2. Favouritism
I’m sure we all experienced this and no doubt it still goes on in schools now. The kids who show exceptional skill in PE are given all the focus and extra attention. Quite simply, everyone needs to be encouraged and included in PE regardless of ability. We should be teaching the kids with good skills to encourage and mentor the ones who are struggling. That’s the beauty of physical activity, especially when it’s a team sport – we’re all in it together working towards a common goal. So many life lessons can be learned from this scenario if it’s played right.
3. PE classes are boring!
That’s the nitty gritty of it right there. When I was at school, PE basically boiled down to netball, hockey or laps. There is a huge variety of new and exciting forms of exercise that young women could be getting involved in at school (the BBC’s instant suggestion of Zumba did cause an eye roll though). How about self defense? Pilates? Body Pump? Distance running – training them towards a half marathon or marathon with a project like Team Bangs on the Run (yup, shameless self promotion there!) Call in outside instructors who do interesting classes at gyms – ones that focus on strength, fun and awesomeness.
4. Gender segregation
Many women recounted tales to me of how they wanted to play football in school but weren’t allowed, being put on the netball team instead. We need to stop these silly gender stereotypes. If a girl wants to play football, let her. And let her play on the boys team if she so pleases. Although admittedly, many of the girls in the WSFF study said they felt uncomfortable exercising in front of boys, so this is something that definitely needs to be looked into. It’s not as simple as having girl-only PE classes either.
5. It’s seen as unfeminine to sweat
This was what a lot of the girls in the survey said and who can blame them for thinking so? Feminine beauty ideals are shoved down our throats on a daily basis through every media outlet possible. Sports/fitness events that are aimed at us always seem to have some sort of beauty tie-in, be it a free blow dry after a run (’cause, you know, we should never look too unkempt) or a goodie bag full of beauty goodies – we are constantly made to feel as though when it comes to fitness, we should get it out of the way and get back to the pretty as soon as possible. I personally make a point of traveling home in my sweaty workout clothes after a class, my face all flushed and my hair all messy. I think it’s important for young women to see that. I just worked out and I still look cool, I feel awesome and I’m confident enough to bear my beetroot red face for all the world to see. I’ll be pretty on my rest day, thank you very much! Think about it, how often do you see ‘the lads’ in a pack on the train in sweaty kit and shin pads going home from football practice? I bet they weren’t handed a tub of hair gel and told to pretty themselves before boarding the train.
6. Peer pressure
So much of what teens do is based on what their friends do. If their friends deem it uncool to work out, that mentality spreads quickly among the friendship group. No one wants to be the one who steps out of line and makes an unpopular move. Way to solve this problem? Easy – incorporate social networking into exercise. There are plenty of ways to do that – all sorts of apps that make exercise more social. Technology is our friend! Let’s use it!
The findings of this WSFF report are basically why I started this site in the first place. There isn’t a form of media that represents women in sport in a positive way. I wanted a site for women who train hard and love exercise and can preach its positive benefits beyond the physical. The girls in the study complained of there not being enough female role models in sport – well chicas, let me point you towards the Street Athletes section on this very site – regular chicks doing badass things in fitness every day. It’s up to us to set an example, start mentoring these girls so they have a more positive outlook on fitness and body image in general. We can make these changes if we work together.
What other things do you think need to change for teen girls to get more into fitness?
Re 5. I don’t have an issue with sweating but I do like time to shower before I move on to the next moment. Hanging around in cold, sweaty clothes just isn’t pleasant. Tying that in with the PE theme, despite having showers available at school we were never given enough time to use them before our next lesson. Even if we had been, a lot of girls in this country don’t have the body confidence to shower in front of others. Do you remember putting your shirt on over your t-shirt and then struggling to take the latter off without removing an inch of skin?
Fantastic article, very much sums up my thoughts. I’ve always disliked the competitive element at school. I know some people thrive on competition but not all. I’ve never been fussed about winning (lucky since I’m not fast or skilful) but I love getting stuck in and involved.One of the many reasons I love running now, on my own and with my club is that it’s totally non-competitive. It’s just good to be doing it and enjoying it. I’d like to see that message spread – do it because it’s fun.
Hated PE from primary school and high school, the PE teachers were uninspiring, bully, mega bitches who hated you if you were slow/weak/uncoordinated. Over ten years later and I’m the fittest I’ve ever been and the best is yet to come thanks to running (to my own beat!)
Great article! I too hated PE at school: I am not a ‘team sport’ kind of person, and there was no emphasis on finding individual’s strengths (unless it was hockey/ netball). I was told to run cross country as a punishment for being bad at (or having a bad attitude towards!) netball, and it was then I discovered I a) loved it and b) was really quite good at it. All of a sudden the PE teachers had time for me…
I know too many women, however, who carry with them horrors from PE and refuse point blank to ever take part in physical activity/ exercise ever again. Whilst I think a large element of responsibility lies with schools/ PE teachers to make lessons as inclusive and as fun as possible, women need to realise that exercise/ physical activity goes beyond the nightmares of PE. Post-school, you can choose what you want to do, where you do it and how often. Don’t let PE be your reference point for how exercise/ physical activity has to be.
If you want to be healthy, happy and fit, there IS an exercise/ physical activity out there that you’ll like. It could be hockey/ netball/ other PE throwbacks, or it could be Zumba/ Ultimate Frisbee or something else you’ve never tried. Check out http://www.facebook.com/women.try.sport.day or follow @wwwwomen2012, an initiative to inspire women to try new sports and activities.
Surely you need some competitive element to it though? Otherwise how are we meant to find GB’s next sporting talent?
And I’m sorry to say but I liked PE at school. I wasn’t outstanding anywhere else but I liked getting sweaty and dirty. If you had told me then that I had to go to a hall and do pilates/yoga I would have walked out to the pitch to play rugby with the boys. Soooooo, what I’m getting at is what about the girls who do like PE? And hockey, and netball etc. What do they do if the curriculum is altered to things like pilates/zumba etc?
One other point that struck me from the report was the ‘lack of confidence’ issue. Girls don’t feel confident enough to participate in sport and exercise. But sport and exercise are fantastically good for confidence building!
I totally agree that sport is sold to girls and women as ‘exercise’ or ‘working out’ which both imply a tedious chore and, as you rightly point out, are appearance and weight-loss focused. I’d prefer to see PE packaged as sport, plain and simple, and for the teamwork and participation element to be celebrated just as much as the winning.
Finally I appreciate this isn’t particularly sympathetic but I do find the ‘school PE put me off/I don’t want to mess up my hair’ excuses pretty pathetic. I was crap at PE at school too and have astoundingly poor hand-eye co-ordination so don’t think I don’t know how it feels to be last to be chosen for the team, and to be the rubbish one who everyone was desperate to substitute for some lissom blonde thing who was good at netball (which was of course our only option for sport). But you can’t let those memories dictate your physical exertions for the rest of your life. And really, seriously, your HAIR? Grow up!
Urgh, I hate people who write ‘grow up’ in comments and now I am one. But you get the gist. It’s pretty lame.
I hated PE at school. From spending the first 20mins faffing around in the changing rooms to praying my friend picked me so I wouldn’t be left with the undesirables at the end, I just dreaded that hour every week.
It wasn’t until I was pregnant and worried about stretch marks and being a tummy mummy (sigh) did I get into fitness.
Young people need exposure to ALL sport from early, we shouldn’t be segregating them with “boys sports” and “girls sports”. My daughter is getting to do boxing, swimming and tap. If in 2mths she wants to give it all up for the shotput we’ll do that! Health is not just a boy’s or girl’s problem.
THANK YOU for writing this!! The article I saw on the news blamed it solely on girls not wanting to look sweaty in front of the boys but it’s way more complicated than that and you’ve summed it up brilliantly. I vividly remember one episode when I was singled out by a teacher because of my 6ft height and repeatedly made to (unsuccessfully) attempt a slam dunk in front of two classes’ worth of kids. I was right at the bottom of the popularity pile (and teachers must know the social dynamics of their classes) and he could not have humiliated me more if he’d stripped me naked and made everyone point and laugh.
“We should be teaching the kids with good skills to encourage and mentor the ones who are struggling.” –
This is the crux of it I think. It’s only now at the age of 30 that I’m really starting to enjoy sport, and that’s because of the ParkRun I attend, and people like you who encourage the ones who may not be very fast, but who are trying all the same. If you’re finding something hard and you have people laughing at you rather than supporting you, well, you won’t try again will you?
Well said. It’s pretty depressing that things don’t appear to have changed in this area since I was at school 20 years ago.
Being made to play hockey (aargh) and netball (just why?!) constantly drove me quite mad. I was obsessed with football and just wanted to play, but of course we weren’t allowed. I skived PE classes for practically two years because it bored me to tears, concentrating on playing football out of school instead.
Maybe if PE lessons involved activities girls actually want to do, you wouldn’t get decent potential female athletes avoiding them like the plague.
Is there not also another argument that teen girls aren’t being encouraged to play sports or exercise outside of school? PE is probably at most 60 minutes of exercise in one week, count in getting changed and getting to your next class and in reality, it’s probably closer to 45 minutes. Yes, the curriculum is often boring and repetitive but that can’t be the only thing putting girls off sport, exercise and generally being active. I’m sure that if we could measure the effect of a family’s attitude about being active, there probably would be a clear correlation between that and the attitude of their daughters towards exercise.
I hated PE in my school, it was dull, boring and repetitive. However we were encouraged to play sports outside of school and until I was 17, I trained in Taekwondo and other martial arts for two hours three times a week.
Great post. SO many issues surrounding this subject….
I stopped doing PE after a while because we barely did anything! After getting changed, we listened to the teacher talk for almost half the lesson. It just seemed pointless to me. I was getting changed just to sit in my PE kit. On the rare occasion that we had a substantial PE lesson, if it was not at the end of the day I was NOT involved as we had no working showers. Something about doing a full on session early in the day and not being able to shower just felt gross to me.
I was not keen on the choice of sports. I loved athletics when it was in season, I also didn’t mind hockey. I couldn’t stand netball or rounders, but given the chance, I would kick a ball around at playtime with my friends for a bit. I agree that there should be less gender stereotyping when it comes to sports. Girls should be allowed to play football, and if boys wanna play netball, so be it. The more skills available for them to learn, the better. I also think that there should be SOME mixed sessions, if only to bring a competitive element to it. Winning a game against a bunch of lads would do wonders for some of their confidence, and might help them work together as a team and relate to each other better. I imagine much like in the ‘grown up’ world sometimes, girls at school have their own issues with each other.
A big part of this is the lack of choice. If there were more options, perhaps there would be a chance that some of the more reluctant girls would find something that interested them. Zumba is not a bad place to start as far as suggestions go. Yes, it is targeted at women, but if it gets them moving, I would count that as the start of victory! Sadly though, I think lack of funds may play a big part in it. If external sources are needed in order to provide the variety that the system is lacking, there could be a chance that the funds are just not available. Or at least that’ll be the excuse they use! The culture that we have here of not investing money in sports in schools is actually pretty pathetic. Every now and again the powers that be will bang on about obesity in youngsters, yet not invest money in decent sporting programmes in schools. Makes NO sense!
As Dawn mentioned, there needs to be encouragement outside of school. As much as I side stepped PE, I would still go out and ride my bike around the park, and rollerblade etc. I kept pretty active because I had fun doing so. I fully appreciate that its not fun for everyone though, and even getting some of these kids to just WALK more and educate them about nutrition I believe would still do wonders.
I could sit here and say that the girls should ‘grow up’ and stop being concious about how they look when doing sports, but as mentioned in the post, they are constantly bombarded with the notion that looking a little ‘roughed up’ after sporting activity is not acceptable. Also, when I look back at what was ‘the end of the world’ for me back then, I do laugh. But at the time it was full on disaster! They will grow up to realise that these things don’t matter, but for now they are in the middle of figuring a fair few things out.
One of THE most important things that these girls are missing are sporting role models. WE know that they exist, but because they are not being splashed across tabloids for behaving badly, they are unlikely to know about them unless they seek them out. This needs to change. There are badass women out there that do sports, sweat AND lose NOTHING in terms of their femininity. Get THOSE women in the spotlight and show these girls what can be done!!!
That’s my 2 pence!
I was nick named jelly baby due to the size of my thighs, I was told not even to bother getting changed for high jump due to my apparent uselessness, I was always the person left unpicked for a team. So, outrageously conscious if my size, lack of skill and unpopularity, was it any wonder that by the time I got to sixth form I would be found hiding in a humanities faculty room preferring to homework than engage in a PE lesson? I found my own happy place in sport by joining and local swimming club where I swam competively 5 times a week and went on in adult life to qualify as a teacher. Something as a basic as swimming was not offered at my school apart from one reluctant term of minibus trips to the local municipal pool.
My daughter is now at secondary school and it appears not much has changed. How very disappointing that with all their progression to keep up with technology and trends and lifestyle, the PE department is stuck well and truly in the past.
Thankfully my confidence was not crushed but actually blossomed to make me the strong person I am today where I can enjoy excersice on my own terms. But as you say this is not always the case.
Time to get our thinking caps on so we can help all ages and abilities equally.