The Importance Of Sports In Sports

Sports play an important role in American culture, with the top four most popular being football, baseball, basketball and ice hockey. These professional athletes make millions of dollars through their annual salaries and endorsements. Many wonder how they got to where they are today and was it worth it. There are mixed messages about participating in sports as a child and how it affects their development. Some believe that sports will help their child develop better communication skills, self-confidence and build character, while others believe that young athletes will develop aggression traits such as bullying, competitiveness, and aggressiveness. Although some believe that sports participation as a child will lead to aggressive children, there is ample evidence through research that sports benefits a child’s cognitive, social, and, physical development.

Being physically active from childhood may lead to many health benefits not only physically but also cognitively. A child’s cognitive development is one of the most important developmental factors during childhood. From the article Exercise and Children’s Intelligence, Cognition and Academic Achievement, Dr. Philip Tomporowski along with his colleagues, examined studies that observe the effects of exercise on children’s mental processes. Researchers in the fields of cognitive science typically use a componential-analysis approach to assess the operations of the mind, such as memory, attention and perception (Tomporowski, 2008). These theory bases tests are used to isolate and evaluate how various factors impact brain functions.

Dr. Thomas Hillman performed a study on less fit versus highly fit children to investigate the relationship between aerobic fitness and cognitive fun...

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...n, most of the studies conducted yield positive relationships between a child’s cognitive processes, social skills, and physical development. Although there could be error in the studies and reports due to bias, self-report, and false negative or false positive errors, the overall results conclude that physical activity benefits a child’s mental, social, and physical abilities. Learning key values such as honesty, teamwork and fair play at an early age through physical activity and sports, yields healthy and well rounding individuals. Physical activity and sports participation at a young age can help a child’s growth tremendously, but one should also be cautious of pushing a child too far. Overall, the positive effects of physical activity during childhood triumphs any negative, which can be fixed, and leads to stronger mind, body, and soul.