Girls on the Run FAQ

Q: Why the Young Age?

Studies show that girls between the ages of eight and twelve are still receptive to adult influence even though they are beginning to feel peer pressure. It's an age psychologist’s call the latency period of development when girls begin to confront important life and relationship issues. As a prevention program, Girls on the Run initiates healthy decision making about difficult issues and encourages communication between kids and their parents/caretakers.

In addition, learning healthy exercise habits early in life increases the chances that participants will value their own physical fitness as adults. Recent studies show that only those who develop exercise habits in their teen years or earlier are likely to maintain those habits for life. It's well documented that regular, moderate exercise improves cardiovascular functioning, and reduces the risk of developing breast cancer, osteoporosis (brittle bones), and obesity.

A variation of the Girls on the Run program - Girls on Track - has proven positive with middle school participants.

Q: What About a Program for Boys?

We have piloted a boys program within our Charlotte, NC Council for several years now which unfortunately has had little or no success. In early 2005 we were faced with the decision to cancel the pilot program due to lack of interest and have also decided to not roll out the boys program to our other councils within the United States. Although it was a difficult decision to make, we could not continue to allocate resources towards an unsuccessful program.

We have seen that the boys’ interest in the program is not nearly as strong as the girls’ interest. Many times we found that it was not the boy’s but the parent’s decision to join the program, which resulted in a lack of motivation to become committed to the entire program. We have also had a great deal of trouble recruiting and retaining male coaches for the program. Although we would certainly welcome and encourage women to be involved as volunteers and assistant coaches, because of the nature of some of the topics within the lessons, we believe strongly that a male mentor would be more appropriate to serve within the head coach role, just as we do with women in the Girls on the Run program. We have been very disappointed in the amount of support from participants, volunteers and sponsors - all of which are fundamental to having a successful program.

We hope that the support needed to have a successful program will present itself in the future. We will continue to have Boys on the Run in our long range plan. It is our wish that one day we have a program equally as successful for boys as we have for girls.

Have program results been evaluated?

In 2001, Girls on the Run International contracted with Rita DiGioacchino DeBate, Ph.D., MPH, CHES, to perform a formative impact evaluation. She performed the evaluation in 2002 and 2005. The evaluation assesses the Girls on the Run program and how well it meets stated objectives by using a pre-test/post-test that measures attitudes towards physical activity, self-esteem, eating attitudes, body image and communication. Dr. DeBate is an Associate Professor in the School of Community and Environmental Health at Old Dominion University.

Prior to running our pilot, Dr. DeBate’s review of the academic research in the area of girls and sports turned up two contradictory results. On the one hand, girls involved in athletics have higher self-esteem and engage in fewer risky behaviors than girls who are not. On the other hand, girls who become highly competitive in some sports (such as running, figure skating, gymnastics and other sports in which slim body images are admired) have a higher incidence of eating disorders than girls who are not involved in such sports. This poses a dilemma which – after running our evaluation - Dr. DeBate believes the Girls on the Run curricula may solve.

Through the evaluations, Dr. DeBate found that our curricula improve girls’ self-esteem, body size satisfaction, and physical activity behaviors to a statistically significant extent. Also noted are positive changes regarding attitudes towards physical activity, health behaviors, and empowerment.