Active Adolescents
Back in the Game: Development of an Evidence-based Sport Re-engagement Intervention for Female Adolescents in South Australia View Digital Media
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session James Kay
Despite the well-documented benefits of sport participation, adolescent dropout remains a pertinent issue, with the rate of dropout higher in girls than in boys. Recent scholarship has proposed that dropout from youth sport is not the crisis that it is often portrayed as and may instead be due to developmentally appropriate changes during adolescence. Nonetheless, youth sport dropout often leads to sustained disengagement from sport and other, less structured forms of physical activity. Therefore, easy avenues for re-engagement in sport must be present to ensure that those adolescents who drop out are not lost indefinitely. This study used a co-design process involving 23 adult stakeholders and primary qualitative data from 30 female adolescents to create an evidence-based sport re-engagement intervention. Key components of the intervention included: (1) targeted sport showcases to increase visibility of sporting opportunities for recently disengaged girls; (2) An app-based mentorship program connecting female adolescents with female athletes and leaders; and (3) The development of re-engagement guidelines for State Sporting Organisations to ensure equitable, high-quality competitive opportunities for female adolescents. Re-engagement is an under-prioritised area of sport participation research that could have a beneficial effect on overall participation rates. It is anticipated that this intervention will improve participation outcomes for female adolescents by ensuring that those who have previously dropped out of sport have easy ways to re-engage. This study may also serve as a blueprint for future targeted participation interventions and has potential to fundamentally improve how sport participation initiatives are designed and delivered.
The Physical Activity, Mental Health and Wellbeing of Adolescents at Risk for Non-communicable Diseases in the Eastern Cape, South Africa: The Role of Gender and Poverty View Digital Media
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Leon van Niekerk
Adolescents in resource-constrained settings face unique challenges that intersect physical activity, mental health, well-being, and vulnerability to non-communicable diseases. This study explores the physical activity, mental health and well-being of adolescents at risk for non-communicable diseases in the Eastern Cape, South Africa, with a focus on the influence of poverty and gender inequality. The research highlights the interplay between socio-economic factors, behavioral risk factors, and psychological outcomes in a context marked by systemic inequities. Situated within the fields of psychology, the study contributes to understanding how structural determinants shape adolescent health outcomes. A quantitative cross-sectional design was employed, utilizing a stratified random sample of 266 adolescents aged 14–17 from eight urban and rural schools in two Eastern Cape districts. Data were collected on behavioral risk factors (smoking, drinking, physical inactivity) and mental health indicators, with analyses including correlation tests, chi-square analyses, and logistic regression. Key findings reveal that 69.7% of adolescents were at risk for NCDs, with 59.8% reporting mild to severe psychological distress and only 36.7% flourishing. Physical inactivity was significantly associated with psychological distress and non-communicable diseases risk, particularly among females and those from poorer backgrounds. The study’s limitations include its cross-sectional design, which precludes causal inferences. The findings underscore the compounded impact of gender and socio-economic status on mental health and non-communicable diseases risk, emphasizing the need for targeted interventions addressing structural inequities to improve adolescent health outcomes in low-resource settings.
International Olympic Committee Young Reports Programme Review: In-house Training of Journalists
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Jessie Wilkie
A comprehensive review of the 15 years the International Olympic Committee Young Reporters Programme has been running. Starting 2010 during the Youth Olympics the IOC recruits around a stack of early career participants, always including locals to the Youth Olympic area, and train them up to be news agency staff. Teaching them photography, broadcast writing, feature writing, digital media and social media skills, this piece looks at the programme in terms of the training of media professionals. With interviews and surveys from previous participants, this piece looks at what might be missing in the training of journalists. It also considers what this programme did successfully – bringing together people from across the globe and funnelling them into the sports media world.
