Should Kids Compete In Competitive Sports

Skeptics have been arguing whether kids should or should not compete in competitive sports. Many kids around the world already play competitive sports to begin with. Three out of four American families have one school-aged child that plays an organized sport, which is a total of 45 million kids (Atkinson). Competitive sports is also very beneficial. “Playing a sport can help children to better at school work”(“Sport For Children”). Even though many people think that kids should not compete in competitive sports, evidence shows that children should compete in competitive sports because sports provides many health benefits, prepare for difficult challenges as an adult, and extra expenses paid by parents will decrease immensely.

One reason why

For example, childhood obesity is very expensive regarding medical costs. Each year adults that have kids with obesity pay $1,429 more in medical expenses than they originally had. In 1998, adults were paying 40 billion dollars and in 2008 the amount increased to $147 billion. During childhood obesity adults paid an estimated amount of $3 billion a year directing just to medical costs (Barnes). A health issue that it is an effect of not getting enough exercise is obesity. Obesity causes many extra expenses for the parents to have to handle with. If kids start a competitive sport, there obesity will go down because of the amount of the exercise the sports needs. Competing in competitive sports will lower the medical expenses for obesity issues. Also, at the age of 18, 7.5 hours a day are spent using social media, on television, computers, phones, movies, and video games. Only 1/3 of children are getting the recommended physical activity that they need. Going to the park, riding their bike, and dancing, kids will become more engaged and exited (“Get Active”). Technology can be a huge extra expense for parents to deal with. Since, teenagers are on technology most of their time electronic bills will rise. If kids start getting active and playing a sport, time on electronics will be lower, because of the time needed to practice and play games for the sport they are attending. If kids are not staying active they will start having problems with obesity, and an immense amount of time on electronics. By playing a sport, children will be more motivated to stay active which will decrease the amount of extra expenses parents are paying for. As a final point, to diagnose diabetes the cost as of 2012 is $245 billion. Including direct medical cost which is $176 billion and $69 billion in reduced productivity (American Diabetes Association). Playing a sport allows the risk of getting diabetes to