Wednesday is National Girl’s and Women in Sports Day. It is a day to not only celebrate the many amazing accomplishments of female athletes, but also to call attention to the important roll sports can play in a young girl’s life.
The research is overwhelming: girls who play sports achieve higher academic success and are more likely to earn a college degree, they enjoy greater health and well-being, have greater bone density (translating to lower risks of osteoporosis), are less likely to develop breast cancer later in life, experience less depression, are less likely to engage in risky sexual activity, and are less likely to smoke and use illegal drugs. Yet girls are still not afforded the degree of encouragement or opportunity extended to boys to participate in sports. At a time when obesity in our country is at an all time high and lawmakers are slashing funds for physical activity in schools (a topic to be addressed another day!), the importance of healthy role models can not be ignored.
We need more magazine covers sporting the likes of Venus Williams and Mia Hamm and less with Heidi Montag and Jennifer Aniston, because who are they really, and what have they done for us lately? It breaks my heart because young girls are looking at these magazine covers worrying if they are thin enough, pretty enough, sexy enough. Women’s bodies come in all shapes and sizes and they are all worthy of celebration. Determined at conception, so many of our physical attributes can not be controlled: blue eyes, brown eyes, straight hair or curly, long limbs or short….almost like drawing straws. You get what you get, yet so many women spend a lifetime trying to fight it instead of embracing and loving it – learning how to work it.
I believe in my core that if we raise little girls with role models that are strong, healthy, athletic women who focus on what their bodies can do for them instead of how they look, we will raise a generation of healthy, strong, and confident women.
Muscles do not belong exclusively on men anymore than skin belongs exclusively on women. It is possible for femininity and physical power to coexist. In fact, I believe the more we embrace our bodies, the more womanly we become.
I don’t need journal articles or research studies to tell me this, although I have read them. In fact, my thesis in graduate school focused on just this (I am pretty sure only my professor and my thesis advisors read that!) Growing up I loved to run. We lived across the street from a track and at an abnormally young age I remember running around it and enjoying it. I idolized Mary Decker (and cried when Zola Budd tripped her in ’84. I can’t remember what I did yesterday, but I remember those Olympic Games as if I were competing!). I worked the monkey bars at recess and practiced on my brother’s doorway pull-up bar. My first watch in elementary school was a large black stopwatch (I didn’t actually get a “normal” watch until my junior year in college), I got in trouble for wearing running pants to Sunday school, and I dreamed of starring in a Nike commercial. I never did make the Olympics, but running has played a starring role in my life and it has made me who I am today. It has made me strong, hard working, resilient, confident, and hopefully compassionate, kind and honest.
Think about how good you feel, how wonderfully exhausted and totally exhilarated you feel after a workout. It’s not just the physical results; it’s the energy you create that makes you feel capable, self-assured, proud of yourself, more beautiful. Being active can make a difference in your life, in the lives of other women and in the lives of generations of women to come. Take a moment on Wednesday to share your passion for sports and physical activity with a young woman in your life.
A special thanks to Mary Decker Slaney, Chris Evert, Billie Jean King, Martina Navratilova, Nadia Comaneci, Dorothy Hamill, Peggy Fleming, Mary Lou Retton, Martina Hingis, Lisa Leslie, Monica Seles, Jackie Joyner-Kersee, Florence Griffith Joyner, Mia Hamm, Natalie Coughlin, Lindsey Vonn, Misty May-Treanor, Kerri Walsh, Paula Radcliffe, Steffi Graf, Janet Evans, Cheryl Miller, Michelle Wie, Jessica Mendoza, Venus and Serena Williams, Bonnie Blair, and Angela Ruggiero among others, who have led by such great example.
For information or to make a donation towards promoting sports and physical activity for young girls and women, check out: www.womenssportsfoundation.org.
My first road race – 3 yrs old.