Daily HealthBeat Tip

Girls� fun and games

From the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, I�m Ira Dreyfuss with HHS HealthBeat.

Teen girls often turn into physical activity dropouts. By the time they�re 18, many girls don�t exercise at all.

Researcher Russ Pate of the University of South Carolina suspected traditional physical education classes weren�t all that compelling to many girls � and they weren�t learning to make activity a part of their lives.

So Pate compared ninth-grade girls in programs that specialized in stuff girls like, such as aerobics and dance, with a control group in traditional sports P-E. His study, supported by the National Institutes of Health, was in the American Journal of Public Health:

"The girls who attended the intervention schools � those where we made the changes in the school � reported more consistent participation in moderate to vigorous physical activity." (12 seconds)

Pate says some girls enjoy traditional games, others don�t � and there should be room for them all.

Learn more at www.hhs.gov.

HHS HealthBeat is a production of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. I'm Ira Dreyfuss.

Last revised: November 2, 2005

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