Daily HealthBeat Tip

Girls’ fun and games

From the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, I’m Ira Dreyfuss with HHS HealthBeat.

Teen girls often turn into physical activity dropouts. By the time they’re 18, many girls don’t exercise at all.

Researcher Russ Pate of the University of South Carolina suspected traditional physical education classes weren’t all that compelling to many girls – and they weren’t learning to make activity a part of their lives.

So Pate compared ninth-grade girls in programs that specialized in stuff girls like, such as aerobics and dance, with a control group in traditional sports P-E. His study, supported by the National Institutes of Health, was in the American Journal of Public Health:

"The girls who attended the intervention schools – those where we made the changes in the school – reported more consistent participation in moderate to vigorous physical activity." (12 seconds)

Pate says some girls enjoy traditional games, others don’t – and there should be room for them all.

Learn more at www.hhs.gov.

HHS HealthBeat is a production of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. I'm Ira Dreyfuss.

Last revised: November 2, 2005

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