If you purchase an independently reviewed product or service through a link on our website, SheKnows may receive an affiliate commission. The 2024 Summer Olympics are almost upon us and it’s touted as the first Games to ever achieve full gender parity among athletes. In Paris, as many women will compete as men, which is something to celebrate and a reflection of the increased opportunities girls have today to get involved in sports. But we can also acknowledge how much more work we must do to make the athletic experience — at every level, on all fields of play — truly equal for everyone.
The positive effects of playing sports are well known: increased self-esteem, social development, physical fitness, and honing transferable skills like teamwork and discipline. Research by the Women’s Sports Foundation has also shown that mental health disorders are up to 2.5 times lower for girls who play sports versus those who never have. The 2023 Project Play study by the Aspen Institute showed that the participation rate among girls is the highest it’s been since 2013, due in no small part to the rise in popularity of professional women’s sports, which have received far more attention and media exposure than ever before. With more chances to watch and emulate superstars like Simone Biles, Angel Reese, Caitlin Clark, Coco Gauff, Sophia Smith, and many more (just wait until the Games kick off on July 26), girls are more likely to see themselves participating.
Where we still fall short, however, is creating team cultures and environments that take the unique needs of girls into account. Sports remain a masculine place, historically created for and by men, still widely led by men—and today we still play by the same rules, under the same philosophies. But what if we didn’t? What if we reimagined how we approach the way female athletes are coached, how they train, and how they compete, based on how their bodies and minds differ? How many more of them would stay active longer if they felt like they belonged in the first place?
These are some of the questions we ask and try to answer in our new book, The Price She Pays: Confronting the Hidden Mental Health Crisis in Women’s Sports—From the Schoolyard to the Stadium, written with Katie Steele, a former NCAA Division 1 athlete and licensed marriage and family therapist, and Tiffany Brown, Ph.D., LMFT, and faculty member at the University of Oregon. Through first-hand accounts, research, and reporting, the book delves into the issues that girls and women commonly experience throughout their athletic careers, from mistreatment and abuse, to body image and eating disorders, and conditions like anxiety and depression.
Here are three ways to help guide parents and coaches toward more joyful and successful athletic experiences for girls of all ages.
-
Talk about puberty with your athlete
Although they’re giving it a go in increasing numbers, as it currently stands, girls are two times more likely than boys to drop out of sports by age 14, according to the Women’s Sports Foundation. It’s around the time of puberty that they begin to feel uncomfortable and self-conscious moving their growing, rapidly changing bodies. Many girls become inactive when they get their periods, because of the way they feel or even because they fear leaking through a uniform. The challenges that girls face as budding athletes are also so often treated like taboo topics, exacerbated by the lack of diversity among youth coaches, 75 percent of whom are men, according to Project Play research.
The physical and hormonal shifts come at a time that their brains are also changing. Girls may feel a lack of control over their bodies, as well as over other aspects of their lives. They’re temporarily more susceptible to injuries as their centers of gravity alter, as well as performance plateaus or declines as they adapt to their evolving body composition. Life generally can feel more stressful, and as a result, these young athletes can experience symptoms of anxiety and depression, or other mental health conditions.
