Participation Trophy

It’s pretty much a given that hoisting your keister off the couch and moving around benefits most of us, whether it’s CrossFit training, rec league softball, a half-hour on a Peloton, or a walk around the neighborhood. Blood flow, muscle movement, brain stimulation, varied activity. Kids, too. Physical and mental development, reduced likelihood of obesity and juvenile health issues, eyes capable of focusing on something farther away than a cell phone. 

The busy beavers at the Aspen Institute and City University of New York’s graduate school for public health, with multiple collaborators, recently completed and published results of a study that attempts to get a handle on the effects of youth sports participation. And by “get a handle,” we mean conform to the very American practice of attaching numbers and dollars to every blessed component of existence. 

It’s a small part of a massive U.S. Government initiative called “Healthy People 2030” that examines everything from age groups to diseases to socio-economic factors to what they call “health indicators,” all with an eye toward improving our health and our lives in the next decade. The headlines from the Aspen Institute/CUNY study were that the U.S. could save $80 billion in medical costs and losses in productivity and add 1.8 million more quality years to Americans’ lives if youth sports participation levels increased to the initiative’s targeted goal – “quality” being relative, given our headlong march toward a “convection oven” earthscape. 

The HP 2030 goal is that 63.3 percent of kids ages 6-17 participate in sports, compared to the present rate of 50.7 percent. Youth sports participation took a big hit due to COVID-19 and the pandemic, dropping from 58.4 percent, with no early indication that it will climb back to the previous rate on its own. Among the study’s conclusions are that meeting participation goals mean 1.7 million fewer children who are overweight or obese, 147,000 fewer cases of diabetes, 145,300 fewer cases of coronary heart disease over their lifetimes, and 59,700 fewer cases of cancer. 

Because there’s evidence that sports participation reduces anxiety and depression – high school locker room shower time aside – researchers also conclude that the target figure will save $3.61 billion in direct medical costs and $28.38 billion in productivity losses. Even just a participation increase of a few percentage points will have a significant impact, the study says. “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,” said CUNY honcho and study author Bruce Y. Lee in the Aspen Institute’s press release. “And those savings will keep recurring if the United States can maintain that level of youth sports participation.” 

Skepticism toward the numbers is understandable, since some of the report reads like those economic impact studies touting the projected gazillions of a new arena or convention center to the local economy that in reality mostly benefit owners and developers, often at the expense of the hoi polloi. The study’s target audience isn’t just the sports crowd, though, it’s those with their hands on the purse strings. 

It’s a discouraging reality that everything is quantified and reduced to zero-sum calculations, but that’s where the rubber meets the road in a capitalist society. For business and science and medicine, sure. But how the hell do you attach numbers to public parks, to health, to happiness, to beauty? Why even try? And yet, art exhibits are judged by price tags and museum turnstile counts, music by the number of discs sold or streamed, as if something that inspires a thousand people is inherently more valuable than something that moves a dozen. Same with sports. 

Of course, kids should have the opportunity to play sports, or at the very least be active. Even helping just a handful of kids can have a ripple effect far beyond the here and now. Gyms and fields and coaches and equipment cost money, though, right? Youth sports become a luxury item when cities and communities cry poverty about paying teachers or for essential services. Suggest that youth sports will save money and increase productivity, however, and suddenly the audience pays attention. At least, that’s the hope. 

To their credit, the Aspen Institute’s Project Play and their allies aim for broad, grassroots school- and community-based programs heavy on introduction and variety and skill development, not merely elite-level competition that often has money available already. “We’ll rally the Project Play network of leaders to lift participation rates, but sport organizations can’t do this alone,” said Tom Farrey, executive director of the Aspen Institute’s Sports and Society Program and fellow study author in the release. “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.” 

Farrey and others understand the landscape. They know that the citizenry of the wealthiest country on the planet shouldn’t have to beg for resources for kids. They know that it shouldn’t be a revelation that active, healthy kids are more likely to become active, healthy adults. Yet that’s where we are. If it requires some imagination and appeals to the bottom line to attract interest and to dislodge dollars, so be it. Future producers, I mean “kids,” benefit, regardless. After that, they’re on their own for ways to gum up the works.