Football and cheerleading are the two least attractive sports for young people.
According to the Aspen Institute’s Sports & Society Program football ranked dead last for male high school athletes. And competitive cheerleading ranked last for female high school athletes.
However, football came in second for its psychosocial benefits.
The best sport for boys? Cross-country running.
The best sport for girls? Swimming.
The Aspen Institute intended for parents to use the sports index primarily as a resource for generating discussion and helping students and parents make effective, healthy decisions.
“We definitely are not telling anyone you should play this sport, you should not play that sport,” said Jon Solomon, the program’s editorial director. “We are big believers that all sports have different benefits.”
According to Ryan Basen, a contributing writer for MedPage Today, in an article titled “High School Footall Ranked at the Bottom for Health Benefits,” Michele LaBotz, M.D., of the American Academy of Pediatrics’ Council on Sports Medicine and Fitness, encouraged applying the index to help kids recognize which sports best suit them and which sports represent the greatest risk of a serious musculoskeletal injury. She also advised using the index to recognize “how sports enhance your life” beyond the physical aspects, alluding to the reported psychosocial impacts.
Previously there was “no resource to evaluate the relative benefits and risks of playing a given sport, and we find parents don’t have a lot of information,” Solomon said in explaining the index’s origin.
The Healthy Sport Index can be found at http://healthysportindex.com/.
