Ladies enlighten me

ninerbuff

I'm trying to do some research on my own (maybe write a thesis on it to contribute to my Wellness Center) to better understand how females think so the more opinions the better.

I've noticed that girls in elementary school (I volunteer PE as a parent) will physically play hard and like to run around. I've gone to middle schools and it seems that it's not as "posh" to get sweaty and physical for girls in those grades. So what am I missing?

Is this the age and grade that a female starts thinking differently about their bodies or start worrying about what their peers think?
How much does puberty play into this?
Are girls this age influenced by magazines, hollywood, etc.?

What's been your experience personally and if you have a daughter that's gone/going through it?

I know I'm speaking of girls here and it's because of the pressure that society puts on women on what's considered pretty, sexy, acceptable weight, etc. Men don't seem to have the same pressure put on them (with maybe the exception of weight).

EDIT: It's not ALL girls, but a lot in middle school seem to veer away from effort in PE.

A.C.E. Certified Personal/Group FitnessTrainer
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Female_On_Fire

I think it has everything to do with puberty and body changing. I was by far the dirtiest, scabbiest big wheel riding, play with worms and spit at people tomboy. The summer that I was 12 I saw a spider in a fishing boat and screamed bloody murder. The next week I got my period. Hormones change ,girls become uncomfortable in their new bodies. But damn if I ever let anyone beat me when we had to run a mile.including boys.

xiamjackie

I work in a middle and high school so I can definitely attest to this. Plus, it's really not that long ago that I was in middle school myself ( only 10 years)

When girls are young, they can easily be on the same level as boys and they really don't care what boys think. They're not concerned yet about if anyone "likes" them or whatever. They play the same sports and a lot of times they're on the same co-ed teams.

When they start getting into middle school, girls are becoming concerned with how the boys see them. I never really understood this part while I was in school, myself, because I never cared. I was still a tom-boy and loved to get sweaty during gym class. However, the girls that do care what the boys think and want to look delicate and pretty will not lift a finger to look sweaty during exercise. I knew some girls in high school who could run a 7:00 minute mile if they tried, but chose to walk on the day that we ran in gym class because they didn't want to be sweaty or mess up their hair.

Middle and high school is really when being self conscious sets in, too. Girls care so much about how they look and how they are represented to others, that they need to maintain it at all times. This is a danger zone for girls that age because they are so impressionable. Eating disorders can begin around age 12/13 (I know sometimes a lot younger too) and can really manifest themselves when the girls get to high school. A lot of those same girls that wouldn't exercise in gym also didn't eat lunch because they wanted to remain skinny and didn't want to be seen chowing down in front of anyone.

Hope this helps!

StheK

I'd guess there are a lot of reasons for this. One is that school is, for a lot of teenagers, a social thing. "Play" time suddenly becomes the best time to socialize, rather than "play". The other is that as we get older, our bodies change and we feel like we need a shower and a change of clothes after we get very physical. That's not always easy or convenient or even possible to accommodate in a school setting. And if there are shower facilities open to anyone at any time (regardless of class schedule, I mean), if they're open showers without any privacy, you've just cut your number of people willing to use them in half, at least.

Those are just my guesses.

CorvusCorax77

i'm assuming you are joking that you need help figuring this out.

RoxMyWorld

I think that this drive to be considered pretty or cute rather then athletic and strong kicks in around 12 however is different for everyone and doesnt kick in for some at all. Some at all costs are competitive and athletic. I think a huge factor is PARENTING. I think the new standards in school which focus more on not hurting everyones feelings and letting everyone be part of the team instead of healthy competition is making leaving our children without a sense of competitive drive.

hamiltonba

When I was in middle school, I was aware of myself and what my peers would think. If I got sweaty, It would mean my hair would get wet too. This meant my hair would be a mess. We were not given blow dryers or enough time to fix our hair so therefore we would not want to get sweaty enough where it would mess up our hair.

If you think about it, most gyms have hair dryers, etc. so that you can fix yourself up if you needed to.

I can't speak for all girls, but when it came to participating in gym at school, I didn't think about magazines or hollywood, etc. It was just that if you got sweaty from playing gym, it meant your hair was a mess.

Bikini27

Honestly, for me it was a self esteem issue. (When has it not been??)
It got worse when bodies were changing and we were forced to dress and undress in large rooms together. Some girls pointed and laughed at the unfortunate souls who had not begun shaving, were late bloomers, or just were overweight.

And then it's the boy-crazy thing. You want to be pretty and not smell funky. This is something that gets worse as makeup is worn by younger and younger generations and hair has to be just *so*.

It took me until my Freshman year to appreciate a good hard sweat and longer to feel comfortable running in public (just this past summer, actually...) which is the catalyst of becoming so insanely overwieght. Again, it was my own self esteem. Girls that joined team sports or were in track and field seemed to be the ones to push harder and play harder without fear of looking silly/stinky/stupid because they did it more often and in mixed company.

If I could go back and do it all again? I would have gone out for sports, begged and pleaded to take dance classes, and avoided my own demons all toghether.

:flowerforyou:

ATOLLIT

I think that's the kind of age where girls start to worry about what they look like - if you run around too much and get all sweaty, it'll ruin your hair/you'll break a nail/make-up will smudge... etc etc.

Personally, I didn't really care, but then I was never one of the girly girls that got up at 6am to straighten their hair. Except for the fact that my school didn't have showers we could use after PE, and it's never pleasant to do an hour's exercise then have to stink your way through the rest of the school day!

But it's not just teenage girls, I still play a lot of sport at uni, and to me getting hot and sweaty and looking a bit of a mess is something that goes with the territory, but a surprising amount of my hockey team get really worried if the men's teams are watching or we have a team photo at the end, and won't run too much on the pitch in case they mess up their hair/go red in the face/sweat/whatever. It irritates me, I've always felt that those girls need to just get over the fact that if you exercise, you're going to look like you've exercised!

CaliforniaSweetheart

When I was in middle school, I was aware of myself and what my peers would think. If I got sweaty, It would mean my hair would get wet too. This meant my hair would be a mess. We were not given blow dryers or enough time to fix our hair so therefore we would not want to get sweaty enough where it would mess up our hair.

If you think about it, most gyms have hair dryers, etc. so that you can fix yourself up if you needed to.

I can't speak for all girls, but when it came to participating in gym at school, I didn't think about magazines or hollywood, etc. It was just that if you got sweaty from playing gym, it meant your hair was a mess.

Lmao! Exactly this.

ninerbuff

i'm assuming you are joking that you need help figuring this out.

No joke. Actually am interested in hearing opinions on this subject.

A.C.E. Certified Personal/Group FitnessTrainer
IDEA Fitness member
Kickboxing Certified Instructor
Been in fitness for 30 years and have studied kinesiology and nutrition

crystalflame

I remember one day in 6th grade we were playing soccer during PE. I was playing hard because I liked it. One of the girls in the cool crowd came up to me and told me I needed to stop if I ever wanted my crush to like me - she knew he liked girly girls who cared more about makeup than sports.

Hormones happen. Girls suddenly care if guys like them. That's also when we all started subscribing to teen magazines, which told us to wear makeup and do our hair pretty for guys to notice us. More than that, girls are trying to impress each other - who can look the most grown up, who can make out with a guy first, who can wear the shortest skirt, who can throw a crazy party. Not sweating during PE and still being pretty for the rest of the day is an important part of that better-than-everyone-else image. As a middle schooler, self-identity and self-confidence is lacking, so even the girls who might want to go all out during PE feel pressured not to do so. Middle school's a tough time...

tinak33

Sometimes it will depend on the group the girl is in. If the girls in the group are getting more "girly" they may shy away from anything that gets them dirty or sweaty. That's the age we start noticing the magazines telling us what girls/women are supposed to look like.
As impressionable youth, we don't see them sweaty and dirty so we can't do that either.
I'm speaking generally, obviously. I'm trying to channel my inner middle schooler....
Also girls are more interested in making an impression on the boys who probably don't even notice. haha

Girls can be very easily influenced by the media and by their peers. Especially when puberty hits. I went from active, being involved in soccer, kickball, softball, dance, whatever, to NON active. Once I hit the age of 12 I stopped playing anything sports related and convinced myself I was too uncoordinated and clumsy to do anything. I actually still have that belief and have been working on breaking it as of lately... :ohwell:
I went from not caring about anything to wearing t-shirts over my bathing suit because I was so self conscious even though I was a rather scrawny kid...

Thing is, it's different for everyone.
Like billieljaime said..... we will probably find a cure for cancer before figuring out the pre-teen female mind.... :laugh: :laugh:

CoffeeNBooze

I remember that transition very well. Like you've seen with the other girls, I loved PE in elementary school. For me, what changed was the way I was treated. Once I hit 6th grade, the students seemed to take PE and themselves more seriously. I was scorned for not being the best player and not treated very respectfully because of it. In summary I'd say yes, puberty had something to do with it. The other girls in my grade started wearing nylons, dresses, and makeup to school. That's when several stories of promiscuity surfaced as well. I wasn't really into any of that. I was 11/12, and while I had crushes I was really more interested in playing outside and watching nickelodeon at night. I felt really discouraged by all of this change. And I think kids these days are no different...middle school is a tough time in where they find themselves and try to adjust and fit in or not fit in.

asamuels85

Dont think that this is talked about as much but even at 12/13 years old, girls care a lot more about what other girls think of them then any boys. A female doesn't want to appear out of shape if they cant run as fast as another girl. She doesn't want to be the sweaty one when other girls don't perspire as much. She doesn't want to smell if she does perspire, because girls in the locker room not boys may smell her. In fact i was one of them that would rather not even change in front of other girls, so i would "forget" my gym clothes and that meant i didin't have to participate as much. Remember that girls and boys in middle school don't really mix yet. I mean girls spend much more time with female peers than male.
To add to that though, males are still very much "boys" in middle school and females are not! So just like on the elementary playground a boy might poke fun at a female classmate for looking weird when she tries a push up or pull up those types of things. That is a big "turn off" as far as physical activities go for girls that age. Mostly boys and girls in middle school are on different levels.
I remember the first time i weighed 100lbs in Junior high school. I developed a very bad body image and ED soon after, only because my friends (who were all lil shorties like me but without the DD cups) had yet to reach the triple digits, even though many taller girls were there back in 5/6th grade.

So yeah, its complicated. hope that helped shed a little light on the subject.

CountingCaloriesSuxass

What? I got a headache now..thank you OP

JesterMFP

At that age, I was a little overweight (but in my head I was huge) and I was unfit. PE wasn't fun. I felt self-conscious about changing in front of other people, and self-conscious about running around, red, sweaty and out of breath in front of other people. Kids can (and were) cruel. Swimming was the worst - being self-conscious about your body and how it's changing, and then having to stand around wearing very little in front of the thinner, more confident girls (who were probably dealing with their own issues) was bad enough, then having to stand around wearing very little in front of the opposite sex just made it 10x worse. Kids at that age (male and female) are generally not that comfortable with their bodies, and are getting the hang of changing shape, body hair, body odour etc.

Being unfit meant that exercise was unpleasant anyway (I think fit people forget or don't realise how uncomfortable it is to be gasping for breath when you're out of shape - it's just not the same when you're fitter). Additionally, at my school, the kids who were good at sports got to play real sports. The kids who weren't had to run around doing "ball skills" (whatever the sport) and never got to play a real game. It was boring, and we were always aware of being the ones that didn't have a hope of making the team. My memories of PE are mostly running up and down a muddy field around plastic cones, or running up and down a field in the general direction of a ball, trying to look involved enough not to get shouted at. Most of the PE teachers I ever had were super-sporty and had little sympathy for the overweight/unfit/uncoordinated/unmotivated kids. We got school reports for PE, and year after year I was told I was uncoordinated, and that sports weren't my forté. It was easy for me to believe it.

ItsCasey

I think 5th and 6th grade is when it starts to sink in that boys can be more than just friends, and that's when girls start caring more about how they look, in general. You don't want to get sweaty and gross with the boys because you don't want them to think of you as the sweaty, gross tomboy who isn't interested in boyfriends. One of my best childhood friends went from being the tomboy to being a girly girl almost overnight in 6th grade because she thought her interest in sports made her seem too much like "one of the boys." I remember being shocked the day she came to school wearing makeup and carrying a purse, with her hair fixed up, and she refused to play football with the guys during PE. Confusing times.

When boys and girls started to have separate PE times (7th grade when I was in school, and PE was in the middle of the school day), the whole "getting sweaty and not having time to shower or redo hair and makeup" thing was definitely an issue. No one wanted to spend the rest of the day all gross and smelly, so a lot of girls would choose not to play sports at all because if you didn't play on a sports team, you basically spent the whole class period walking around the gym while the volleyball and basketball teams practiced.

StheK

PE and sports put your body on display and make it the focus in a way that doesn't matter so much when you're younger. When you are super conscious of any kind of attention at all, especially to your body, the last thing you want to do is put it out there to be the center of anyone's attention. Or what you perceive might make it the center of attention.

debbieae1

I have a different take on why my physical activity dropped at puberty...breasts. I developed early, large and fast. I was a C cup at 13, and had not yet gotten in the habit of wearing a bra everyday, had to buy new ones often due to size changes, so did not have many either. Suddenly changing in the locker room was more awkward, other girls would stare. 13 year old boys were worse. Even if I had rembered my bra that day, there is enough bounce to attract every 13 year old male eye in a 3 mile radius. Did not quite understand it and that made it worse. Last but not least on the bounce...it can hurt! Jump rope, trampolines and running became just too much to handle.