U.S. receives low grades for fitness activities among youth

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The Physical Activity Alliance’s latest U.S. Report Card on Physical Activity for Children and Youth showed another year of C and D grades. The body mass index for children during the first nine months of the pandemic approximately doubled compared to pre-pandemic data.

Across the country, poor children and adolescents are participating far less in sports and fitness activities than more affluent youngsters are. Call it the physical divide.

Data from multiple sources reveal a significant gap in sports participation by income level. A Centers for Disease Control and Prevention study found that 70 percent of children from families with incomes above about $105,000 — four times the poverty line — participated in sports in 2020. But participation was around 51 percent for families in a middle-income range, and just 31 percent for families at or below the poverty line.

A 2021 study of Seattle-area students from fifth grade through high school found that less affluent youth were less likely to participate in sports than their more affluent peers. The study also found that middle schoolers from more affluent families were three times as likely to meet physical exercise guidelines as less affluent students.

A combination of factors is responsible. Spending cuts and changing priorities at some public schools have curtailed physical education classes and organized sports. At the same time, privatized youth sports have become a multibillion-dollar enterprise offering new opportunities—at least for families that can afford hundreds to thousands of dollars each season for club-team fees, uniforms, equipment, travel to tournaments and private coaching.

“What’s happened as sports has become privatized is that it has become the haves and have-nots,” said Jon Solomon, editorial director for the Aspen Institute Sports and Society Program.

Recent Aspen Institute research found that among children from families making less than $25,000 a year, participation in a healthy level of activity fell to 26.6 percent in 2021 from 34.1 percent in 2013. For children from families with $25,000 to $50,000 in income, participation fell during that time to 35.7 percent from 38.1 percent.

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