Thank heaven for little girls

The following is a press release issued by NMSU on Friday, August 17, 2007.

Parents, teachers can help 'girly' girls learn to be active
    As children return to school this month, one NMSU researcher says parents and teachers can help young girls be active, despite stereotypes and self-identified barriers that label them as "girly" and often keep them from participating in physical activity.
    In a study this past spring with fifth-grade students at Las Cruces area elementary schools, Kimberly Oliver, an associate professor in the College of Education's Physical Education, Recreation and Dance Department, looked at what barriers were keeping young girls from participating in physical activity and then worked with the same girls to identify how to overcome
those obstacles.

What's wrong with girls acting like girls? If there are any "barriers" to children (of either gender) being physically active, then require the students to participate in phys. ed. class, and ensure that the activities are suitable for the age group and are inclusive to any physical limitations.

A better question would be for them to study "girly" boys -- although I can tell them the answers already.
1) Teasing and peer pressure from more active or athletic boys discourages passive or uncoordinated boys, even when they try. It gets worse with the onset of puberty. (Elementary school was okay, but junior high gym class was hell.)
2) Perhaps certain children simply are not genetically programmed to be active. As early as kindergarten or first grade, a classmate came over to my house to "play". He wanted to do something, but all I wanted to do was to read. I suspect this is nature overcoming nurture, because I had two older brothers to play basketball, baseball, or hockey with, and parents who encouraged me to be active. Still, I didn't want to play because I didn't like it. I took gym class because I had to.

As an adult, I am more active, but that is my choice, and I participate in solitary exercise, not group athletics. That could be where physical education improvements could be made: vary exercises between organized team sports and independent activity ("No sport is more disorganized than Calvinball." -- Calvin, Calvin & Hobbes). to accommodate both the competitive and solitary children.