Children experience many benefits from playing sports while growing up, but the participation level across the country is steadily declining. Researchers at City University of New York say by increasing participation to targeted levels by 2030 could improve physical and mental health of many children and save as much as $80 billion in direct medical costs and productivity losses.
The current participation levels of kids ages 6-17 in youth sports is 50.7 percent and the Healthy People organization wants to see that improved to 63.3 percent by 2030. Healthy People has been issuing objectives and targets since 1980 based on their research aimed at improving the well-being of the population. Their 10-year projections are updated periodically and their latest work says in addition to the cost savings, it will add 1.8 million more quality years of life to Americans.
"Our study shows how achieving this major public health goal outlined by Healthy People 2030 can not only help to prevent diseases and save lives, it can also save our economy billions of dollars," says Bruce Y. Lee, MD, MBA, executive director of PHICOR, professor at CUNY SPH, and senior author of the study. "And those savings will keep recurring if the United States can maintain that level of youth sports participation."
Dr. Lee and his colleagues from several other universities developed a computational model to represent youth participation in sports. They tracked weight changes and mental health issues such as anxiety and depression of the participants until they turned 18.
The model then simulated and noted the associated weight-related outcomes such as diabetes, stroke, heart disease and cancer that could possibly be experienced over their lifetimes.
"In general, people agree that there are many benefits to playing sports and being active, but our study is the first of its kind to quantify the impact of sports participation on kid's physical and mental health as they grow up," says Marie Martinez, MPH, project director at PHICOR and first author of the study. "This is not only helpful for showing the current and future impact of increasing sport participation, but can also help decision-makers determine how to invest and allocate resources to increase participation."
The largest portion of the projected savings comes from reducing weight-related diseases over a lifetime that could result from the increased physical activity during adolescence. There is additional savings calculated from the decrease of depression and anxiety since studies have shown the power of sports to help reduce or eliminate both in young people.
"We're dangerously close to having a nation in which most children no longer play organized sports," said Tom Farrey, executive director of the Aspen Institute's Sports & Society Program, founder of Project Play, and co-author of the study. "We'll rally the Project Play network of leaders to lift participation rates but sport organizations can't do this alone. We need the help of public health, education, government, philanthropy and other sectors that touch the lives of kids—those that will derive many of the benefits and cost savings of getting and keeping more kids in the game."
Click here to read more in the American Journal of Preventative Medicine.