Here’s another good reason for kids to participate in organized sports: They can develop the “grit” that will help them overcome challenges as adults, a new study suggests.
Grit is defined as the combination of passion and perseverance that helps people achieve their long-term goals. This new research found that adults who played sports when they were young scored higher on a gritty scale than adults who didn’t play at all or said they’d quit.
The results suggest that the lessons children learn in sports can have a positive impact on their lives long after they grow up, said Emily Nothnagle, lead author of the study and a recent graduate of The Ohio State University.
“Kids who participate in sports learn what it’s like to struggle as they learn new skills, overcome challenges and bounce back from failure to try again,” Nothnagle said.
“The grit they develop playing sports can help them the rest of their lives.”
But all is not lost for adults who did not play as children – the study also found that adults who said they had participated in sports in the past year showed more grit than those who had not, said the co- study author Chris Knoester, associate. professor of sociology at Ohio State.
The study was recently published in the journal Leisure Sciences.
The survey data came from the National Sports and Society Survey (NSASS), sponsored by the Ohio State Sports and Society Initiative.
The survey was completed by 3,993 adults who voluntarily participated through the American Population Panel, conducted by the Ohio State Human Resources Research Center.
Participants, living in all 50 states, answered the survey online between fall 2018 and spring 2019. Because NSASS participants are disproportionately female, white and Midwestern, the researchers weighted the survey results to more accurately reflect the US population.
Grit was measured by asking participants to rate themselves on a scale of 1-5 on eight statements, including “I am diligent. I never give up” and “I am a hard worker.” None of the statements were directly related to sports.
The first results showed that 34% of those who had played sports as a teenager scored high on the grit scale, compared to only 23% of those who did not play sports.
And 25% of those who never played sports scored low on the grit scale, compared to just 17% of those who played sports.
More sophisticated statistical analyzes that accounted for respondents’ demographic characteristics supported these findings as well.
But to get the benefit of participating in sports, kids have to keep it up and play continuously, the results suggested.
“Adults who played youth sports but dropped out of school did not show higher levels of grit. They actually showed lower levels of grit after we included a proxy measure of how important sport was to grit development while growing up,” Knoester said.
The proxy measure was based on respondents’ perceptions of how their athletic experience affected their work ethic.
“Stopping can reflect a lack of perseverance, which is a crucial component of grit. It can also make stopping an activity, and not persevering, easier the next time.”
Adults who played sports as children generally felt that the experience helped improve their work ethic. And that perception was linked to their gravel scores as adults.
But even after taking this finding into account, the findings showed that participation in sports boosted the gravel scores.
“Participation in sports seems to have enhanced people’s development of grit even more than they realized,” Nothnagle said.
But could some people just be born with the guts to help them succeed in sport as a youth and then continue to benefit from that trait as adults? Knoester said this study can’t definitively answer that question, but the results suggest that people can gain or lose weight throughout life.
Adults who said they participated in sports regularly in the past year showed higher levels of grit, regardless of whether they played sports early in life and how much they felt their athletic experiences affected their work ethic. while they were growing up.
“This additional finding about sports participation in adulthood suggests that you can build and perhaps lose grit during different points in your life,” Knoester said. “It is not a static quality.”
Study participants were not asked how they participated in sports as adults. It may be that many challenged themselves through personal training or workouts, rather than in organized sports as they did as children, the researchers said.
The results should not be interpreted as meaning that gravel has no downside, however, Nothnagle noted.
“There can be issues if you use gravel without any limits. Too much emphasis on the application of gravel in sports activities can lead to some people overtraining and injuring themselves, for example,” she said.
But in general, the results suggest that along with the health and other benefits of sports, the development of grit can be another positive impact.
“Sports offer this valuable place in society where you can work hard and practice and take it seriously, but it’s also not real life to a certain extent – typically, sports are seen as a separate sphere of life and sports stakes are not. so wide-ranging and extreme,” Knoester said.
“But you can take those lessons you learn and practice in sports, like building grit, and apply them to your life outside of sports in very useful ways.”
