Parents debate whether rise in competitive youth sports has led to decline in children's physical fitness: 'I hear they're doing tryouts for 3rd graders now'

We've all heard the line, "Kids never play outside anymore. All they do is stay indoors and scroll on their phones." While phones and an ever-increasing parental paranoia about safety outside the home keep kids from going outside and throwing around the old pigskin, there might be some other reasons kids today are not as physically fit as they could be.

If you've ever been an unathletic kid, you know that the prospect of joining sports can be scary and uncertain. If you live in a town with 1000 people, the high school basketball team probably wouldn't cut you, even if you were objectively unathletic. However, if you live in a community with a high population where competitive sports are highly valued, you may not feel encouraged to try out unless you've been playing the sport since elementary school. There isn't always a place in sports and various extracurricular activities for kids who want to participate for fun, and that's not right. Hyper-competitive environments might help the kids who are the best of the best. Still, if a kid feels horrible about being mediocre at soccer because their coach takes it way too seriously, they're not going to want to continue playing. It's better to be okay at a sport than to forego athletics altogether.

The rise in pay-to-play competitive travel teams might be contributing to the decline in more casual youth sports leagues. At least that's what the parents of X have expressed in this thread. They believe kids would be better off if they had the chance to play sports and be bad at them, and I'm inclined to agree.
01

via Lars Bo Nielsen

_{Image is representative only and does not depict the actual subjects of the story.}
Advertisement
02

via @dissproportion
03

via @dissproportion
04

via @dissproportion
Advertisement
05

via @ericcarroll
06

via @edwardleetwtr
Advertisement
07

via @dissproportion
08

via @sull1vannolan
Advertisement
09

via @D_the_Designer
10

via @dissproportion
11

via @D_the_Designe
Advertisement
12

via @AlexNoonan6
13

via @dissproportion
14

via @AFKHuckleBerry
Advertisement
15

via Curated Lifestyle (Unsplash+)

_{Image is representative only and does not depict the actual subjects of the story.}
16

via @terwill1911
17

via @LucaGuadagnegro
Advertisement
18

via @Predamame
19

via @schitzobabel
20

via Getty Images (Unsplash+)

_{Image is representative only and does not depict the actual subjects of the story.}
Advertisement
21

via @GoetzItSold
22

via @modestpropos4l
23

via @soul_needed
Advertisement
24

via @dklmarxist
25

via @dklmarxist
26

via @_NicoleCoop
Advertisement
27

via @big_pedestrian
28

via @maiamindel