Tuesday, February 16, 2010
Title IX and Human Growth and Development
Read the handout "As Girls Become Women, Sports Pay Dividends". Looking at the data supplied by the article and your own recently acquired knowledge of how humans grow and develop biopsychsocially, what other connections can you make? Be sure to state the obvious and not so obvious correlations between the book and the data. 20 line minimum.
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Well... Since we already know that environment has a huge influence on how people develop. Generally speaking, when people are raised in an environment more condusive of teamwork and fitness, they tend to succeed at a higher level, have more competative careers, and have a lower rate of obesity, as per the contents of teh article in question. One might also think that, as the brain develops, actively using the communication skills necissary to play team sports, would improve frontal cortex development. Not only communication, but planing and using judgement would also be influenced. Aside from this, though this may not have so much to do with what's mentioned in the article, the cerebellum would probably develop into a more effecttiv etool, should regular sporing activity be made part of the routine of a woman's life. It may be similar to the flynn effect, in that as sports levels among highschool girls and boys reach "parity" their incomes latter in life also become closer on average, it is similar how more education improved IQ scores around the world. Apparently, around 20 percent of the increase in women's education has been due to the increase of girls playing sports. Also, physical development, like helping establish good, solid motabolisms, seems to have come to bear, establishing a modest, but still good, 7% lower obesity rate in woman who played sports as girls.
ReplyDeleteFacsinating I think... to see how much the govermnet's legislation affects us!
Nice points made Phil. What about the developmental theorists, ie Piaget, Erickson, et al? Does the playing of the sports or camaraderie change according to increased human interaction?
ReplyDeleteThe article states that as a human is physically active it gears them to become eager to succeed and be active in other aspects of their life. The stiumulation of physical activity is a motivator. The passing of Title IX caused a surge in female participants of sports at a high school and collegiate level. Since then it has been proven that they can reap developmenta and health benefits. Thye have seen a decline in obesity by at least 7 percent. No other health program has been able to claim such findings. The book agrees with the article stating that it stimulates the growth of a brain during development. Most of it taking time during the high school era. Old habits die hard. Most of the practices from high school will probably remain the same. There is still a large gender gap with about half of all boys competing in sports whereas 1 out of every 3 women compete in sports. Title IX has given many women the opportunity to expand their horizons besides in sports but to ensure that they will be able to do other things in their lifetime. Like grown mentally.
ReplyDeleteThe article about Title IX claims that individuals who play sports are more likely to do better in life. If someone is active, their health is obviously going to be superior to that of someone who doesn't exercise. Better health means a longer life. Playing in sports also exposes a person to teamwork and forces them to interact with their peers, meaning they are building a social life. The person feels a part of a whole, feeding that sense of belonging. Learning these social skills is essential and will later come in handy for advancing in one's life. As for the increase in education, in order to play sports a person must maintain a certain GPA. However, this also contributes to development, since the person is learning how to balance the different aspects of life, such as time management, without falling under too much stress. Overall, playing in sports will aid a person's development, in more areas than one.
ReplyDeleteThe article talks about how girls participating in sports have made significant improvements in many different areas. It has lowered pregnancy rates, caused better grades and higher self-esteem. This is true because the feeling of belonging to something and feeling important causes a person to be better in other aspects of life. It gives people drive, it motivates people to go above in beyond in other areas of their lives. The article also talks about the affect adding sports to a girls life has a major affect on women's education and employment. This goes along with the whole motivation and drive thing. However, it alo goes along with human growth. Exercise and physical activities play a huge role in how humans grow. The body has a need for physical activity, it helps the body develop and grow. It also contributes to the development for a person biopsychsocially because it plays a major role in emotions, thoughts and behaviors.
ReplyDeleteWell…Title IX has definitely had some role in the growth and development of girls over the past several decades. We all know that an active teen is a healthy teen. With all the new money that was pouring into girls’ sports, it was bound to effect the number of participants and interest in participating, thus increasing the number of teenage girls who were getting regular physical activity on the sporting fields. However, I believe that Title IX is not the only reason for the increase. In recent years, we have gained more understanding of how the human body works and develops, as well as the importance of physical activity in health. That said, there has been more of a constant push to get teens to exercise, more advertisement of the importance of physical activity, and more information on healthy eating habits. Therefore, I think it is no coincidence that there was a 7% obesity decline in women in their late 30s and 40s. These days, it is also more important to look good. It’s no longer the Seinfeld days where you could have that weird hair. Everything must be perfect, or at least many women (and men) feel that way. Therefore, many women are putting in extra effort to being fit.
ReplyDeleteWhen students participate in sports and fitness programs, it helps their development in many ways. It helps the brain fine tune its reasoning skills as well as communication skills. Teamwork can help develop the part of the brain that involves social skills. Besides affecting the brain, sports and fitness while younger can improve the rate that they will continue to be physically fit, making a less chance that they will become obese. Even students that do not continue with fitness were shown to have a decreased obesity rate compared to students not in any kind of sports or fitness during their high school career. Being in sports has also been shown to increase IQ results, and has been affecting how students preform in school. The endorphins released help stimulate the brain, letting it reason and solve problems more clearly. As far as this affecting guys the same as girls, i think that it would affect either sex the same. Each would have less likeliness of becoming obese. Also each of their skills; judgement, reasoning, thinking and IQ would improve
ReplyDeleteIt's true, physical activity has been repeatedly proven to have both physical and psychological benefits. As I see it, the physical "benefits" of exercise are those things which help a person fulfill their potential lifespan, and do so with minimal debilitating inflictions. The psychological "benefits", however, are not quite as clear. These, as I have deduced, generally are those things which help a person become a productive member of society, which in turn is associated with happiness. Anyways, physical exercise increases blood-flow to the brain, allowing more oxygen to reach critical areas during development. Additionally, physical exertion stimulates the production of neurotransmitters. This obviously has a number of benefits, as neurotransmitters are absolutely essential to all inter-neural communication. Higher levels of dopamine will likely increase mood, and prevent depression. Increased levels of serotonin will likely increase alertness, and sensory sensitivity. Increases of neurons such as norepinephrine will also help prevent depression. Interestingly, the article claims that it can't be certain if these benefits are in fact created by exercise, as they might be intrinsic in those who choose to exert themselves. A fair point. As far as I'm concerned, the only way to be absolutely certain of such as thing would be to force everyone to do such activities. This isn't going to happen in the US, folks. However, the researchers behind the article claim that simply encouraging females to play sports was evidence enough to say that physical exercise worked. Perhaps, the girls who chose to under the new system had more intrinsic beneficial traits. Or, perhaps, I just realized that they measured the entire population after they enacted the law, and then I would be wrong.
ReplyDeleteWell you all got the physical development part down, but didn't mention any of the theorists!
ReplyDeleteAs the article stated, the few provided evidences from the article prove that girls who participate in team sports can result in lifelong improvement to educational, work and health prospects. This is mostly due to the environmental aspect of the whole situation. If the girls can learn to play as a team in their school sports, they tend to succeed later in life later on. Their tendencies on working to get what they need will tremendously increase if it is taught in team sports. Statistically, it certainly explained the 20 percent increase in woman's education and 40 percent rise in employment for 25-to-34-year-old women. Not only team sports can influence their team and individual work skills, it can raises communication and individual judgment skills. Psychologically and scientifically speaking, these will become a routine, in which would affect different cortex lobes of the brain. Team sports are very effective.
ReplyDeleteSeveral other connections can be made. For example, when someone is raised up in an environment with physically active individuals, they tend to either want to be like them or end up being like them. They do better in school, have high self-esteem, and compete against everyone much better overall. When one exercises, dopamine, serotonin, epinephrine, and endorphin levels tend to rise in accordance with the amount of exercise being done. Higher serotonin levels elevates mood and lifts depression so and when a runner, sprinter, or causal jogger is asked, "Does running make you feel better?" they all agree on "yes". Dopamine, epinephrine, and endorphin levels all rise when one is exercising and one usually feels good about their selves after taking a causal run. I'm not exactly sure where in the brain these levels rise, but I do know that it is good - in personal satisfaction, and for your health. An increase of females playing sports with level-out the income coming in for males and females, putting it towards a fairly average rate. It has been scientifically proven that exercise contributes to benefits in our lives. I seem to have ran out of time..we'll speak on this tomorrow, as you said.
ReplyDelete