Features September 2021∣Youth Hong Kong
Sports a must have for youth by Tiffany Tiu If you are a student, are you currently involved in sports? If you are a parent, are your children currently involved in sports? In either case, what are the reasons? I grew up to be a sports lover. After participating in a variety of sports as a kid, I decided to focus on track and field training in secondary school. That said, I still competed for my school in handball, badminton, swimming and rugby at different times. At the time, I just knew that I enjoyed them all. Now, having studied kinesiology, I
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have come to appreciate the tremendous benefit of sports in my youth. In this article, I want to provide you with a glimpse of the robust evidence of physical and psychosocial health benefits from sports for child and youth development. Nobody disputes the benefits of sports for physical health and the development of fitness, but not many realize how certain the scientific community is on this issue. There are two categories of fitness. Health-related fitness includes cardiorespiratory endurance, body composition, muscular strength and endurance and flexibility. Skill-related fitness includes agility, balance, coordination, power, reaction time and speed.1 What else improves all these aspects other than active participation in sports and exercise? Furthermore, a longitudinal study revealed that the more frequently children and youth participate in sports, the better their health-related quality of life.2 Sports participation at a young age also promotes better musculoskeletal development and ensures better bone and joint health.3
