Youth dropping out of organized sports in early adolescence had significantly worse cardiometabolic risk scores (B=0.95; 95% CI, 0.06-1.85) compared to non-participants.
Do different trajectories of youth sports participation affect adolescent cardiometabolic health?
Consistent participation in team sports during childhood and early adolescence is associated with better cardiometabolic health, whereas dropping out of sports is associated with worse outcomes.
Absolute Event Rate: 0% vs 0%
Objectives: To determine trajectories of youth sports participation and their effect on adolescent cardiometabolic health. Methods: We included data from waves four, five, and six of the Longitudinal Study of Australian Children and the intermediary Child Health CheckPoint (CHCP) wave. Participants (n=1851) were 12.0±0.4 years old at the CHCP. We used latent class analysis to identify organised sport trajectories and conducted linear regressions to compare cardiometabolic risk score (CMRS; summative z-scores for body mass index, systolic and diastolic blood pressure, high and low-density lipoprotein cholesterol, triglycerides, and glucose) between classes. Analyses were repeated for team and individual sports participation. Analyses were adjusted for sex, socioeconomic status, and sexual maturity. Results: Four latent classes were identified, including consistent sport participants (65.2%), late uptakes (17.4%), dropouts (7.9%), or non-participants (9.6%). Dropouts had significantly worse CMRS ( B =0.95; 95% CIs, 0.06 to 1.85) than non-participants. For team and individual sport participation, five trajectories were identified. These included consistent participants in both team and individual sports (31.1%), consistent individual (18.2%), consistent team (18.6%), moving from individual to team (14.9%), and non-participants (17.3%). The unadjusted model showed significantly better CMRS for consistent participants in both sports ( B= -0.62; 95% CIs, -1.07 to -0.17) and team sports ( B= -0.53; 95% CIs, -1.03 to -0.04). Secondary outcomes generally showed no statistically significant findings. Conclusions: Sports dropout in early adolescence is associated with poorer CMRS, while consistent participation in team sport with or without individual sport is associated with better CMRS. Further research exploring associations between cardiometabolic health and sports dropout, and strategies to improve youth sport retention should be prioritised.
Hliounakis et al. (Thu,) reported a other. Youth dropping out of organized sports in early adolescence had significantly worse cardiometabolic risk scores (B=0.95; 95% CI, 0.06-1.85) compared to non-participants.