ON GIRLS’ PHYSICAL ACTIVITY AND WEIGHT
Robert Kaestner
This research was partially supported by grants from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and from the
Chicago Center for Excellence in Health Promotion Economics of the University of Chicago and University of Illinois at Chicago. The views expressed herein are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Bureau of Economic Research.
©2006 by Robert Kaestner and Xin Xu. All rights reserved. Short sections of text, not to exceed two paragraphs, may be quoted without explicit permission provided that full credit, including © notice, is given to the source.
Effects of Title IX and Sports Participation on Girls’ Physical Activity and Weight
Robert Kaestner and Xin Xu
NBER Working Paper No. 12113
March 2006, Revised June 2006
JEL No. I12, I18
ABSTRACT
In this study, we examined the association between girls’ participation in high school sports and the physical activity, weight, body mass and body composition of adolescent females during the 1970s when girls’ sports participation was dramatically increasing as a result of Title IX. We found that increases in girls’ participation in high school sports, a proxy for expanded athletic opportunities for adolescent females, were associated with an increase in physical activity and an improvement in weight and body mass among girls. In contrast, adolescent boys experienced a decline in physical activity and an increase in weight and body mass during the period when girls’ athletic opportunities were expanding. Taken together, these results strongly suggest that Title IX and the increase in athletic opportunities among adolescent females it engendered had a beneficial effect on the health of adolescent girls.
Robert Kaestner
Department of Economics
Institute of Government and Public Affairs
University of Illinois at
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