Are there any risks to exercise?

The most common complaint is pain or swelling in the joints after working out. Pain during or after a workout is a clear sign that exercise is being done the wrong way or is being done too often.

Sports safety guidelines should be followed to minimize pain and swelling. Girls who exercise too much can stop getting their periods. Any of these symptoms should be reported to the health care provider right away.

What are overuse injuries?

it's your choice ladies....

Teen Girls Are Not Exercising

A new study finds the amount of regular exercise girls get in their spare time drops dramatically between elementary school and late adolescence.

By Adam Marcus
 

WEDNESDAY, Sept. 4 (HealthScoutNews) By the time they finish high school, many American girls have lost whatever semblance of being physically active they had when they were younger.

A new study finds that the amount of regular exercise girls get in their spare time drops by more than 80% between elementary school & late adolescence. Black teens reported a 100% falloff in regular physical activity each week. Their white peers fared a little better, but even their exercise scores dropped by nearly 2/3 over the 10-year period.

The findings help explain why obesity, Type II diabetes & inactivity are higher among black women than among white women, which raises their risk of heart disease, stroke, colon cancer, osteoporosis & other health problems tied to exercise. Some 15% of American youth are overweight, triple the number since 1970's.

Dr. Sue Kimm of the University of Pittsburgh led the study, which appears in tomorrow's New England Journal of Medicine.

Kimm & her colleagues followed 1,213 black girls & 1,166 white girls from the age of 9 & 10 to 18 & 19. The girls were queried regularly about their exercise habits during out-of-school hours, as well as about other health habits & their family's social & economic status.

At the start of the study period, the two groups reported roughly the same amount of weekly exercise, as estimated in units called metabolic equivalents, or METs, in the form of swimming, biking, dance, gymnastics, & other sports. Black girls had 27.3 & white girls had 30.8 METs, respectively.

But 10 years later, black girls reported getting 0 METs in their free time each week, on average, a decline of 100% from the earlier figure. Whites got 11 MET-times a week, 64% fewer than before.

The number of girls in each group who reported getting no regular leisure exercise by age 16 or 17 was 56% for blacks & 31% for whites. For the entire study, the average activity score plunged 83%.

Black girls had higher average body mass, a marker of overweight & obesity, than the white girls in all age brackets. High body mass index (BMI) was associated with steeper declines in physical activity for both groups.

The rate of smoking was more than 4 times greater among white girls, 27% vs. 5.7%, & smoking predicted who exercised less.

Black girls were 3 times as likely to get pregnant by the eighth year of the study -- 22.3% vs. 7.5%. Pregnancy was cited as a reason for lack of exercise for blacks, but not for whites.

White girls whose parents were poorly educated had greater drops in exercise between childhood & adolescence. But that effect held only for black girls in their teens. Other work has found a similar link between years of education & amount of physical activity among women in this country.

Richard Troiano, an epidemiologist at the National Cancer Institute & author of an editorial accompanying the journal article, said the study underscores how exercise-unfriendly American culture has become.

People take elevators rather than climb stairs, they drive to work & school instead of walk. Neighborhood playgrounds are no longer seen as safe havens for local kids, meaning those who want to participate in sports have to be taken to gyms, fields, or parks -- trips that require sacrifices of time & often money from parents.

"We need to re-emphasize the need for physical activity," Troiano said. "We have to put it back in because we've essentially taken it out."

Bernard Gutin, an exercise expert at the Medical College of Georgia in Augusta, called the latest findings "pretty scary. The implication is that after school [teen girls] just don't do a blessed thing."

Gutin & his colleagues have studied fitness interventions in both boys & girls, with encouraging results. A half-hour or more daily of moderate-to-vigorous exercise can help them shed pounds & take off fat even without changing their diet, he said. His group is now looking at the impact of regular 80-minute workouts on body & abdominal fat.

Sumru Ekrut, a Wellesley College researcher who studies the exercise habits of girls, said the trends in the latest analysis aren't surprising, though the magnitude of the reduction in physical activity is larger than she has found.

"With increasing age, fewer kids are physically active; this is true for both boys & girls," Ekrut said.

The phenomenon of the athletic girl is relatively recent. So researchers know little about the negative effects of stopping exercise in this group, Ekrut said.

"No one has looked at what happens to girls who stop being physically active, whether their developmental trajectory changes. It might, but one could also argue that the protective effects linger."

While participation in sports is generally perceived as a good thing for girls, Ekrut said it's not always an unmitigated plus. Team sports can expose younger girls to the more adult, & potentially dangerous, behaviors of older students, like drinking alcohol. These in turn can make them vulnerable to risky sexual practices & other hazardous activities.

How should an

exercise program be started?

It's wise to talk w/a healthcare provider first, especially if there are health problems that might affect the types of exercise chosen.

Then consult w/someone who understands the mechanics of exercise, like a coach or a fitness expert at a gym. 

What kind of exercise is best?

Different types of exercise build up different muscle groups. For instance, rowing, cross-country skiing, push-ups & pull-ups are good for building arm muscles.

For strong legs, running, biking, inline skating & ice-skating work well. And for the stomach muscles, rowing & crunches are great.

What are the advantages of organized sport?

Many people believe there's a connection between taking part in sports & personal growth & development. Leadership, responsibility, initiative & cooperation are all positive qualities usually ascribed to the results of regular exercise.

Adolescents who exercise score higher in positive personality traits & social acceptance than those who don't exercise.

positive character traits can include: greater future orientation, greater impulse control, greater perseverance, greater resistance to peer pressure & more respect for parental & societal values. These traits are likely to contribute to higher academic achievement.

....in a recent study, men who were labeled non-athletic as a teenager recall feeling inferior & inadequate as an adolescent.

A survey was distributed to 2,400 girls & 600 boys between the ages of 9 & 15 by the American Association of University Women in 1991 & an even bigger survey was given this year by the Commonwealth Fund to 3,586 girls & 3,162 boys in the grades 5 thru 12.

Both documented that more frequently than not, girls entering adolescence experience a self confidence crisis. This crisis leaves girls vulnerable to bad health behaviors, which many times they don't have the strength to fight.

Dr. Emily Hancock, a psychologist in Berkeley, CA found that girls have a peak of confidence at the age of 9 but soon after that it declines. She believes this to be contributed by the physical changes a girl goes thru during puberty.

After 9 a girl's body changes shape & she may gain some weight. She doesn't share the equality of body with her male peers anymore. Along with the lowering of confidence, Dr. Hancock found that girls also lose their "strength, independence, spirit & lucidity" & become extremely focused on their appearance.

A great deal of this focus comes from the media & the idea that the perfect female body is skinny with a very small waist line. Since most girls don't look this way they begin to feel inadequate & their self confidence declines.

The effects of this low self esteem comes in many forms such as:

• depression
• eating disorders
• drug abuse

The Commonwealth Fund survey found that only 39% of girls, at high school age, were very self confident & that the older girls have less self-esteem than the younger girls.

This was the opposite in boys, younger boys have less self-esteem than older boys. 50% of boys at high school age have high self confidence.

29% of girls admitted to having suicidal thoughts while 27% of them said they were sad if not all the time then often.

1/3 of older girls reported that they felt like crying either many days or every day.

Most of the girls said they had never gone to anyone about their feelings, a psychologist or parent, but rather went to:

• cigarettes: 14% of the girls said they smoked a few cigarettes to a pack a week
• alcohol: 15% of teenage girls admitted to drinking weekly or monthly 
• drugs

for help. ......In all 39% of girls in the grades 5 to 12 reported smoking, drinking, or using drugs in the last month.

Sex is also a way of escaping for many girls. 2/3 of high school seniors have had sex & each year almost one million teenage pregnancies are reported, 85% of them not planned.

Another shocking statistic was that 18% of the girls contributing to the Commonwealth survey said they had experienced some form of abuse, sexual or physical.

These girls are twice as likely to smoke, drink, or do drugs, as well as 3 times as likely to have an eating disorder.

Eating disorders are also a common health risk in teenage girls. In the Commonwealth Fund survey 1 girl in 5 in the Freshmen class said she binged & purged & twice that many reported bulimia in the Senior class.

The society's idea of the perfect female being tall, thin & muscular, says Dr. Brumberg , is telling girls that the body is perfectible & is therefore driving girls to doing what ever it takes to attain the "perfect" body.

info from the article: Teens Experience Crisis in Confidence

positive personality traits contribute to personal happiness as well:

• Self-esteem: Happy People Like Themselves
• Optimism: Happy People Are Hope-Filled
• Extroversion: Happy People Are Outgoing
• Personal Control: Happy People Believe They Choose Their Destinies

these traits are mentioned in the article: The Secrets of Happiness

How can a person get the most out of exercise?

Exercise helps the body the most when a person:

• eats healthy foods, following the Food Guide Pyramid
• gets enough protein in the diet 
• gets enough sleep so the body has time to rest & recover between workouts 
• avoids anabolic steroids, which are powerful chemicals that can cause liver problems & increase the risk for high blood pressure, heart attack & stroke

Can exercise stunt growth?

Nothing could be further from the truth. In fact, one of the best things teenagers can do for their health is to decide on an exercise routine and then stick with it. The body will benefit, not just in the teen years, but in adult life as well.

Copyright © 2001 HealthAnswers, Inc. Last Updated: 07/27/01

exercise and adolescents

Here are 10 questions and answers that many teens ask about exercise:

By Dr. Karen Wolfe, MBBS, MA

&...

exercise can help eliminate symptoms of mental illnesses...

exercise can:

• lift your spirits, after the initial moan & groan from forcing your body to move!!!
•  
• depression & anxiety can be wiped away after a good work out 
•  
• keep your mood in a positive uplifting trend instead of feeling lethargic, cranky & moody...

changing your diet after learning about how calories are burned & the food groups - properly eaten - &then adding a regular exercise routine can be of great help in trying to recover from the grips of depression & anxiety disorders....

when a constant change of diet adds exercise to the picture... you can sleep better as well... so there it is... all tied together...

eat better, exercise, sleep better & feel better... pretty simple but pretty smart...

Weight-bearing exercise for girls & young women

If you want strong bones, you have to use them! Everyone needs lifelong weight-bearing exercise to build & maintain healthy bones. Girls & young women especially should concentrate on building strong bones now to cut their risk of osteoporosis later in life. A bone thinning disease that can lead to devastating fractures, osteoporosis afflicts many women after menopause & some men in older age.

Osteoporosis is responsible for almost all the hip fractures in older people. The disease is largely preventable if you get enough weight-bearing exercise when youre young, stay active & continue other healthy habits as you age.

Bone mass & young females

The maximum size & density of your bones (peak bone mass) is determined by genetics but you need weight-bearing exercise to reach top strength. The best time to build bone density is during years of rapid growth.

• Weight-bearing exercise during the teen years is ideal.
• Bones continue to grow during the 20's & sometimes into the early 30's. (Bone loss normally begins in the mid-30's.)

Osteoporosis prevention is a special concern for females for a number of reasons:

• Women generally reach peak bone mass at an earlier age than men.
• Peak bone mass tends to be lower in women than in men.
• Women undergo rapid bone loss after menopause when levels of the bone strengthening hormone estrogen drop dramatically.

Doing regular weight-bearing exercise for the rest of your life can help maintain your bone strength.

What is "weight-bearing"?

Weight-bearing describes any activity you do on your feet that works your bones and muscles against gravity. Bone is living tissue that constantly breaks down and reforms. When you do regular weight-bearing exercise, your bone adapts to the impact of weight and pull of muscle by building more cells and becoming stronger.

Some activities recommended to build leg, hip and lower spine strength include:

• Brisk walking, jogging and hiking.
• Yard work such as pushing a lawnmower and heavy gardening.
• Team sports such as soccer, baseball and basketball.
• Dancing, step aerobics and stair climbing.
• Tennis and other racquet sports.
• Skiing, skating, karate and bowling.

Weight training with machines or free weights can also help build strong bones, especially in the upper body. (Swimming and bicycling are not weight-bearing activities.)

You should exercise for at least 30 minutes a day, four or more days a week. Besides improving bone strength, regular exercise also increases muscle strength, improves coordination and balance and leads to better overall health. To sustain the bone strengthening benefit of weight-bearing activity, you must increase the intensity, duration and amount of stress applied to bone over time.

Additional information

In addition to doing weight-bearing exercise, to protect yourself from osteoporosis, you should also:

• Eat a diet rich in calcium and vitamin D. This may include dairy products (i.e., milk, yogurt and cheese), vegetables (i.e., spinach and broccoli) and fish (i.e., sardines
• Practice a healthy lifestyle with no smoking or excessive drinking.
• See your doctor for a bone density test and/or medications as necessary.

Premenopausal women who exercise too much or suffer from the eating disorder anorexia nervosa can also develop long term problems with weak bones if low body weight stops normal menstrual periods (amenorrhea). (See Female athletic triad.) If this happens during rapid growth years, you could lose bone mass at a time when your body needs to be building it. See your doctor right away for diagnosis and treatment.

2/3 of teenage girls currently are trying to lose weight or have attempted to lose weight recently, according to a study of America's youth. By the time they reach age 18, about 1/2 of U.S. girls feel they are overweight.

But despite their negative self-image, girls are not exercising as frequently as boys, indicate findings of the Harris Interactive YouthPulse study.

The latest study was conducted online in January with 3,878 people from the ages of 8 to 24.

"It is clear that teen girls are more critical of their bodies than teen boys," said John Geraci, Harris Interactive's vice president for youth research. "The gap between the proportion of girls & boys who see themselves as being overweight is significant, but what is shocking is how young this perception starts. We found that about 1/3 of 8 to 12 year-old girls feel they are overweight."

In fact, more than 1/3 of 10 to 12 year-olds are trying to lose weight or have in the past; that number jumps to 65% for girls between the ages of 13 & 15, the study found.

Geraci added, "By most measures, physical activity among young people is decreasing. At the same time, we are seeing decreases in body image perceptions & increases in dieting behaviors among girls."

The study also found that despite female teens & young adults being more apt than males in the same age range to say they are overweight, they are exercising less. Girls age 13 - 24 were more likely than boys to be trying to lose weight (50% vs. 24%) & to perceive themselves as overweight (47% vs. 34%), but less likely to be physically active. 3 in 10 females age 13 - 24 reported that they had not participated in activities that made them sweat or breathe hard in the past week, while less than 1/4 of their male counterparts said the same.

Building Self-Esteem One Lap at a Time

Program sets pre-teen girls on the path to confidence

By Janice Billingsley
HealthDay Reporter

SUNDAY, Jan. 22 (HealthDay News) - Hitting puberty can be like hitting a brick wall for a girl.

One day she's playing soccer & softball & hanging out with her girlfriends. The next day she can feel pressure to be pretty, thin, flirtatious & not too smart if she wants to be popular with boys.

How's a girl to navigate her way around this trap?

Molly Barker of Charlotte, N.C., thinks she's hit on a solid solution. She's the founder of Girls on the Run, an innovative program that prepares young girls for the pitfalls of puberty by combining a big dose of running with games, exercises & discussions designed to enhance a girl's self-esteem so she can enter her teens with confidence.

"I really believe that women struggle to remain true to themselves," said Barker, a former Ironman triathlete with a master's degree in social work.

When she was a teen, Barker wrestled with the pressure to fit into what she calls "the girl box," to be popular. Girls on the Run is her effort to reach young girls before they encounter such teen-years turmoil.

The effort seems to be paying off. Begun as an after-school program in 1996 with 13 3rd graders from Charlotte, Girls on the Run now operates in 198 cities in the United States & Canada, and has reached approximately 40,000 8 & 9 year-olds, Barker said. Half of the girls who participate in one 12-week, 24-lesson session sign up for more. And a new program called Girls on Track is being unveiled for older girls who are entering middle school.

"The activities make you feel really good about yourself. I've learned that you don't have to look like a supermodel to be loveable," said Madeleine Moore, a 10-year-old graduate of the Charlotte program.

"I have more confidence," agreed Tuesday Welch, an 11-year-old Charlotte graduate who has signed up for Girls on Track. "I've learned to look at myself on the inside & not listen to what other people say about me."

A Girls on the Run program, which meets twice weekly after school, offers running at a track as the centerpiece for each session. But exercise is only part of the goal. The broader aim is to enhance the girls' social, emotional, physical & spiritual health, Barker said.

"The program is founded on 3 key concepts," Barker said. The first 4 weeks help the girls to think about themselves in an objective way - "This is what I believe & this is what I stand for," she said.

To make it fun, Barker has created games, including one in which the names of different emotions - anger, anxiety, joy & sadness, i.e., are written on separate index cards. The girls race each other while compiling a bingo-like collection of the cards, then talk about their own emotions & how to best manage them.

The second 4 weeks of the program, again including relay races & other physical activity, focuses on teamwork, dealing with conflict (such as learning how not to gossip) & building a sense of connectedness with each other.

Finally, the girls learn to understand they're part of a larger community & can use their skills & power to change the community for the better.

Nadine Koslow, professor & chief psychologist at Emory University School of Medicine, said, "This is a wonderful age to start this. The healthier foundation you have, the more you have to build on so that when things get stressful, you have the resources to cope with them."

And, she added, the non-competitive nature of the program teaches the girls teamwork & builds their self-confidence.

Melissa Welch, Tuesday's mother, is delighted with the lessons her daughter has learned from Girls on the Run & wishes it could continue as her child gets older.

"It's going to end before she outgrows it," she said.

More information

To learn more, visit Girls on the Run (www.girlsontherun.org ).