Addressing Gender Matters On the Field, In the Locker Room…Everywhere

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For decades, numerous research studies have shown that physical activity and sport play a significant role in positively shaping children’s health and emotional well-being. But, as we learn more about biology and psychology, it becomes clear that gender matters in ways not conceived of when John F. Kennedy became President in 1961 and re-energized the President’s Council on Youth Fitness, predecessor of the more recent President’s Council on Physical Fitness and Sport.

We know today that athletic participation, particularly in children, can favorably influence general health, self-esteem and body image, body weight, social relationships, quality of life, and educational attainment. But we also know that the playing field isn’t exactly level. In addition to biological differences (think: Q angles and a disproportionately high rate of ACL injury), girls and women who play sports often have to navigate the conflicting cultural messages about what it means to be a girl or woman and what it means to be an athlete.

The good news is that, more and more, they are not alone in this struggle. A recent academic research study and a new national report point to the increasing breadth of professional help available to girls and women who want to participate in sport—and the quantifiable impacts that those professionals provide.

By E.J. Durden-Myers and N. R. Green

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LER Pediatrics

From the editor: Time to disrupt pediatric care

In many areas of pediatric medicine, treatment for kids hasn’t caught up with consequential advances in adult healthcare. The FDA, for example, estimates that development of child-specific medical devices typically lags five to ten years behind new adult technologies.

A story in this issue profiles two companies trying to disrupt a current standard of care for kids (see “Biotechnology startups break into pediatric care,” page 39). One, Augment Therapy, was founded by Lindsay Watson, PT, MPT, a pediatric physical therapist developing a software platform that blends telemedicine and augmented reality, the combination of real-world and interactive digital environments, to give children a fun, immersive physical therapy experience.

Watson thought of the solution several years before starting to develop it, thinking someone else would soon see the same possibilities and create the tool she envisioned. Tools did appear, but Watson, looking at the teams behind them and seeing that “there wasn’t a clinician in sight,” knew she could do better.

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 Emily Delzell, Editor