Kids' exercise boosted by team ethic

A better understanding of the camaraderie that athletes often share with their teammates could be used to encourage physical activity in young people, a Canadian researcher says.

At the Canada Research Chairs conference in Toronto on Thursday, Mark Eys, an associate professor of kinesiology and psychology at Wilfrid Laurier University in Waterloo, Ont., presented his research on the level of cohesion among teens taking part in high school sports and activities like running in groups.

Eys, who holds a Canada Research Chair in group dynamics and physical activity, aims to understand the group dynamics that teen athletes experience, with the hope of fostering their love for physical activity into adulthood. 

Physical activity tends to drop off around age 12 when kids go off to high school and start joining new social groups.

"Then the drop off in terms of physical activity is pretty pronounced," Eys said in an interview. "So the trick I think is to avoid that."

To that end, Eys and his graduate students studied more than 1,000 children aged 13 to 17 in the Sudbury, Ont., area, including about 600 athletes at various levels for about two years.

Participants filled out questionnaires that measured:

• How they feel about the level of cohesion in their groups.
• The teams' focus for highly-structured sports like basketball, and how it strikes a balance between self-improvement and winning.
• How well people understand and accept their roles and how that translates into feelings of satisfaction.

Normally, the complex relationships between the structure of the group, cohesion, co-ordination and communication are left up to chance.

Balance competition, camaraderie

The researchers aim to tease those links apart. Ultimately, the goal is to learn what goes into a cohesive group and to take those findings to coaches so children play better and perhaps longer.

At two years into the three-year study, Eys's team has found a strong link between group perceptions and cohesion. As in adults, if teens are in groups that they enjoy, they're more likely to stick to their exercise routine, he said.

So far, the investigators have found that the teens understand what it means to be a good member of a group.

Eys himself has experienced what's he's studying. When he played basketball at the University of Waterloo nearly 10 years ago, the team made it to the nationals one year. While the team didn't win, Eys said they struck a near-perfect balance between competitiveness and camaraderie.

The study will continue for at least one more year and is expected to expand to include kids in the Kitchener-Waterloo area.

The research is funded by the Ontario Ministry of Research and Innovation.