The developing youth are on a path to adulthood. They are building character, skills and habits which very well shape their future.
Positively impacting our children, our youth and adolescence is a vital time to ensure they grow and develop into strong and happy adults.
So what characteristics would we want to teach our youth to help them develop into strong and happy people? The world is a tough place!
What about Grit?
Grit is strength of character and described as courage, resolve, perseverance, resilience and passion – All traits we would want our developing teens to have.
Mental health disorders are the leading causes of disease burden among adolescents (1) with 1 in 7 (14%) adolescents experience mental health conditions (2).
Childhood and adolescence girls report substantially worse internalising mental health disorders (i.e., anxiety and major depressive disorder) than boys and this gender gap increases with age during adolescence. This makes it a vital time for preventing mental health conditions and promoting positive mental health among young people.
Mental health can be promoted using physical activity. It is widely accepted that physical activity can improve mental health (3). Physical activity pared with a social nature may provide additional mental health benefits over and above those attributed to physical activity.
Youth who maintained participation in sport had lower levels of psychological difficulties, compared to youth who dropped out or did not participate in sport. Despite these benefits, sport participation declines steeply during adolescence and over 80% of adolescents do not meet the daily physical activity recommendations (4).
At CrossFit Peak 21% of our active members are 19 years of age or younger, of which 64% are female.
With 50% of females dropping out of sport by the age of 17, CrossFit, the community and social aspect may be a valuable activity to avoid the development and onset of mental health disorders.
I believe that positive exercise habits for our youth is one of the best impacts we can have on our community. This is why we run our Teens program and value it so highly.
If you’re a teenager or a parent of one, we run classes from the age of 12 years. You can book a free trial with us to see if it’s something you may be interested in.
We also offer free consultations sessions where we can find out about your specific goals and how we can help. You can book a free consult here.
References:
- (Patel et al., 2018)
- (Goodsell et al., 2017).
- (Biddle, Ciaccioni, Thomas, & Vergeer, 2019; World Health Organization, 2019)
- (Guthold, Stevens, Riley, & Bull, 2020).
- 2019 AUS youth confidence report – 50% drop off by 17