August 21, 2025 • 10 mins
A study recently came out that said girls in New Zealand are dropping out of sport at twice the rate of boys by the age of 14.
The research revealed that 95 percent of girls aged 11-17 aren't active enough and by the age of 17, they spend 28 percent less time being active then boys.
D'Arcy spoke to clinical psychologist Dom Vettise to break the study down, and discuss the reasons why this may be happening.
LISTEN ABOVE
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:06):
You're listening to the Sports Talk podcast with Dancy Waldergrave
from News Talk ZEDB.
Speaker 2 (00:26):
Good evening, Dom, Hello, welcome to the program, and thanks
for publishing that report around the young girls dropping out
of sport at twice the rate of their male counterparts.
Could you explain, could you simplify it for us what
you've actually found and why are you win in that direction.
Speaker 3 (00:48):
Yeah, so we've we've found that or the study found
that essentially, you know, we have about at twelve years
of age, we have about ninety eight percent of girls
still competing in sports, still participating in sport, and then
when they start to get to the age of about
fourteen years old, we see a massive drop off and
it gets to a point where it's double all the rate,
double the rate of the boys. And then you know,
(01:10):
there's some other pieces of study around like that, you know,
girls around the age of seventeen just aren't getting enough
physical exercise. That's kind of what the World Health Organization
would would suggest. So it's pretty alarming in terms of
some of those stats.
Speaker 2 (01:23):
Is it a cliff they drop off, like suddenly there's
no engagement whatsoever, And is there a particular point when
that occurs.
Speaker 3 (01:31):
That's a good question, and I don't really know necessarily
the answer to it just yet, but yeah, I think
there are definitely some reasons, certainly around you know, when
physical start change start happening for young girls, that we
do start to see that drop off.
Speaker 2 (01:45):
Well, that's a reality, isn't it. I suppose the changes
I'm presuming not that I've ever been a teenage girl,
but that girls go through through puberty is a lot
more dramatic than boys, and that's got to have a
lot to do with it, or maybe not so much.
Speaker 3 (02:01):
Yeah, So I think we can't say it's just one thing.
It's often a combination of a lot of things. So
they've already got a bunch of societal pressures on them.
There's complexities around the amount of demands on them at
that age, you know, academic demands as well. But in
terms of the physical changes that start to happen for
a young girl compared to boys, as they experience that,
(02:23):
boys experience it more of as a time of getting
stronger and building strength, which aligns really nicely to sport,
whereas girls they don't experience that, and it becomes a
moment of a little bit more self consciousness and worrying
about the way that I look or how I should
be and how I should be feeling. And then what
we start to notice is that increase rates of perfectionism
(02:45):
in young girls. And so what that means is I
often think that there's no such thing as perfectionism. Actually,
I think there's more about imperfectionism, because any perfectionists tends
to just point out all their imperfection. And so what
we start to see on the sports field is that
it's very hard to build any self esteem when there
is that going on, because they start to pick out
more of the things that they're not doing so well
(03:06):
and start comparing themselves and judging themselves compared to other girls.
And then essentially, if people are, you know, wanting them
to do really well in sport, try to really encourage them.
But sometimes we may just do some of the encouraging
and not quite the right way or the most helpful way.
Speaker 2 (03:21):
Why don't boys have the same issue? Do you think?
Speaker 3 (03:24):
I mean, some boys will, Some boys certainly will. I
know I was sort a little bit in that camp.
But you know, I think a lot of the time
is because you know, the competitiveness aligns a lot more
with their physical changes. And also sometimes the type of
feedback that they will get from coaches and that they
will get from parents is a lot more aligned to
(03:45):
how they think, so a lot more around outcome, for example,
is with girls, outcomes not quite as important. It's more
about belonging and doing things with my friends and noticing
that I'm improving although I'm learning something about myself or
my teammates. So I think just probably the conditional elements
of sport work a little bit more aligned with boys.
Speaker 4 (04:04):
They're able to not necessarily see you know, then you
get a side of it.
Speaker 3 (04:07):
But I'll give you a really good example. So my son,
every time he scores a goal on football, he thinks
he's just.
Speaker 4 (04:13):
Scored a goal for the World Cup.
Speaker 3 (04:14):
Whereas my daughter, she scores a goal on football, she
kind of wants to hide under a rock and she
doesn't want to look any different to her teammates.
Speaker 2 (04:22):
So what's the next step. Plainly, we want our youth,
be it boy or girl, to be engaged in physical
activity of some formal shape. It is important if we've
got a bunch falling off a cliff. For one of
a better phrase, how do we arrest that fall.
Speaker 3 (04:40):
Yeah, well, I think, you know, the support her campaign
from two Degrees is a really good start. I love
what they're doing. I'm loving being involved in it with
all the different merchandise that they've got and they're bringing
out where we're talking about it being like wearable sports psychology,
where there's some good self.
Speaker 4 (04:56):
Talk readen on the front of that merchandise.
Speaker 3 (04:58):
So that kind of gets people talking about it, bringing
the awareness around it, and we're just creating some resources
aligned with them, so that can really help. Sometimes. I
think that it would be kind of good, you know,
of parenting courses to try and to try and learn
how to be a parent. It'd be really good if
we continue some more education around how to be a
good sports parent or helpful sports parents. So there's some
(05:18):
nice little tips that we've actually put on that two
Degrees website to be able to help out and I
think probably bespoken with coach development as well around how
we can talk and how we can set up training
sessions to really benefit the girls, which will help them
in terms of having fun and a sense of belonging
and building their resilience and confidence as well.
Speaker 2 (05:38):
You'd expect that the sense of belonging would be huge,
and I say that as a father of fourteen year
old girl, that would probably be the most important thing.
Boys are most interested in dominating and being the best
where you work in a team environment. Women tend to
want to be sexist around this, but that they tend
(05:58):
to react in a lot better situation in groups. So
team sport will be ideal for them, wouldn't you.
Speaker 3 (06:04):
Yeah, yeah, it's perfect and that's that, And you're exactly right.
That sense of belonging is so important to keeping young
girls in sport. But it's the comparison that sometimes that
will go on that makes it really hard to feel
that sense of belonging. So one of the tips is
find her tribe. So rather than trying to find you know,
a team that is really performing really well and winning
a league, or you know a training group that's always
(06:27):
at the top, winning the medals and things like that,
find team where there's more of a sense of belonging,
where there's a better fit, and you're going to keep
the girls in the sport for a little bit longer.
And that's that's so important. I see that all the
time as well. When I go down to the football field,
you know with with my kids, it's just that sense
of belonging, that fun, you know, the oranges and the
and the lollies. I often think we should try and
(06:49):
make you know, the car trip on the on, you know,
car pooling is a really cool way to kind of
get you know, the girls really connected and having some fun.
A friend of mine once said to me that it
should getting ready for SAT Day sports should be like
almost going getting ready to go to the beach? Is
there the same fear in the car when you're able
to do that? And I really like that sense, and
(07:10):
if we can build that more with our girls, that'd
be absolutely fantastic.
Speaker 2 (07:13):
What about heroes, we're joined by Dom Vatis, he's a
sports psychologist. You look at young men and because the
high profile of male sporting characters, they've got somebody to
look towards, someone to idolize, if you will, do you
have that same situation in women's sport? Is the profile
(07:34):
high enough for successful women in order to lift people
up and be those heroes?
Speaker 4 (07:40):
Yeah? I think it's I definitely think it's improving.
Speaker 3 (07:42):
And we've got a lot of fantastic female sportswomen that
are doing amazing things and getting out there and doing
talks at schools and even reading books.
Speaker 4 (07:51):
You see them down aims, games and things like that.
Speaker 3 (07:54):
We've got a couple of amazing spokespeople in terms of
vow Adams and Taylor Dalton that will be helping out
with the Supporters Club. So yeah, there's some really good,
really good female role models out there. Ruby twe is
another one who's been really vocal around you know, being
an amazing role model for some of these girls and
(08:14):
getting them involved in sport. So I think the more
that we can kind of bring them out into the community,
the better.
Speaker 2 (08:21):
It's an alarming quote from you. You said, a lot
of girls, which is heartbreaking, say my parents love me
more when I do better at my sport. That's not ideal,
but that's a natural thing for I'd suggest men like
male dads through more so than mum. So this is
(08:42):
something that can be controlled from that parental situation. It's
not about a result, It's about an engagement more than
anything else. I don't believe though that the kids would
say that.
Speaker 3 (08:52):
Yep, Unfortunately that's true where they say it. Whether that's
necessarily true is another thing. But what is important is
that's the perception, you know, And that's the sad reality
of how some people are perceiving this sport.
Speaker 4 (09:05):
I do better, I get more attention when I perform better.
When I score goals.
Speaker 3 (09:10):
Mum and Dad talk to me a little bit more,
and my coach will seep to me a little bit more,
whereas we probably shouldn't be focusing on that when it's
coming to participation in young girls and young in sport.
Speaker 2 (09:21):
One last thing for you, Domin, thanks so much for
your time and your expertise here on sports Talk. When
you look across this, how much of it is girls
dropping away from sport or girls wanted to be engaged
in something completely different, like the way their school groups work,
the way their maturity and development works. They've got better
(09:43):
things to do than play sport. You see what I'm
saying there.
Speaker 3 (09:47):
Yeah, I get it again. I don't know the data
on you know, exactly the reason. If there's some unnecessarily
some other distractions, some other things that are going on
for them, and that's more of the reason. But certainly,
you know, at least we're looking at the data around
the participation, and yes, as I said at the start,
there's some added complications at that age. You know, there
(10:07):
are academia demands and NCAA and things like that that
are coming up. But again you know, the skills that
they will be learning through sport around communication, teamwork, resilience.
They are amazing skills that can be built into you know,
how they study, how they build relationships and how they
go on throughout life.
Speaker 2 (10:26):
Outstanding Mahi mate, Well done, Thanks very much for joining
us on the program as well. You look after yourself.
Speaker 4 (10:31):
Appreciate your time, Darcy. Thank you for more from Sports Talk.
Speaker 1 (10:35):
Listen live to News Talks it'd be from seven pm weekdays,
or follow the podcast on iHeartRadio
You're listening to the Sports Talk podcast with Dancy Waldergrave
from News Talk ZEDB.
Speaker 2 (00:26):
Good evening, Dom, Hello, welcome to the program, and thanks
for publishing that report around the young girls dropping out
of sport at twice the rate of their male counterparts.
Could you explain, could you simplify it for us what
you've actually found and why are you win in that direction.
Speaker 3 (00:48):
Yeah, so we've we've found that or the study found
that essentially, you know, we have about at twelve years
of age, we have about ninety eight percent of girls
still competing in sports, still participating in sport, and then
when they start to get to the age of about
fourteen years old, we see a massive drop off and
it gets to a point where it's double all the rate,
double the rate of the boys. And then you know,
(01:10):
there's some other pieces of study around like that, you know,
girls around the age of seventeen just aren't getting enough
physical exercise. That's kind of what the World Health Organization
would would suggest. So it's pretty alarming in terms of
some of those stats.
Speaker 2 (01:23):
Is it a cliff they drop off, like suddenly there's
no engagement whatsoever, And is there a particular point when
that occurs.
Speaker 3 (01:31):
That's a good question, and I don't really know necessarily
the answer to it just yet, but yeah, I think
there are definitely some reasons, certainly around you know, when
physical start change start happening for young girls, that we
do start to see that drop off.
Speaker 2 (01:45):
Well, that's a reality, isn't it. I suppose the changes
I'm presuming not that I've ever been a teenage girl,
but that girls go through through puberty is a lot
more dramatic than boys, and that's got to have a
lot to do with it, or maybe not so much.
Speaker 3 (02:01):
Yeah, So I think we can't say it's just one thing.
It's often a combination of a lot of things. So
they've already got a bunch of societal pressures on them.
There's complexities around the amount of demands on them at
that age, you know, academic demands as well. But in
terms of the physical changes that start to happen for
a young girl compared to boys, as they experience that,
(02:23):
boys experience it more of as a time of getting
stronger and building strength, which aligns really nicely to sport,
whereas girls they don't experience that, and it becomes a
moment of a little bit more self consciousness and worrying
about the way that I look or how I should
be and how I should be feeling. And then what
we start to notice is that increase rates of perfectionism
(02:45):
in young girls. And so what that means is I
often think that there's no such thing as perfectionism. Actually,
I think there's more about imperfectionism, because any perfectionists tends
to just point out all their imperfection. And so what
we start to see on the sports field is that
it's very hard to build any self esteem when there
is that going on, because they start to pick out
more of the things that they're not doing so well
(03:06):
and start comparing themselves and judging themselves compared to other girls.
And then essentially, if people are, you know, wanting them
to do really well in sport, try to really encourage them.
But sometimes we may just do some of the encouraging
and not quite the right way or the most helpful way.
Speaker 2 (03:21):
Why don't boys have the same issue? Do you think?
Speaker 3 (03:24):
I mean, some boys will, Some boys certainly will. I
know I was sort a little bit in that camp.
But you know, I think a lot of the time
is because you know, the competitiveness aligns a lot more
with their physical changes. And also sometimes the type of
feedback that they will get from coaches and that they
will get from parents is a lot more aligned to
(03:45):
how they think, so a lot more around outcome, for example,
is with girls, outcomes not quite as important. It's more
about belonging and doing things with my friends and noticing
that I'm improving although I'm learning something about myself or
my teammates. So I think just probably the conditional elements
of sport work a little bit more aligned with boys.
Speaker 4 (04:04):
They're able to not necessarily see you know, then you
get a side of it.
Speaker 3 (04:07):
But I'll give you a really good example. So my son,
every time he scores a goal on football, he thinks
he's just.
Speaker 4 (04:13):
Scored a goal for the World Cup.
Speaker 3 (04:14):
Whereas my daughter, she scores a goal on football, she
kind of wants to hide under a rock and she
doesn't want to look any different to her teammates.
Speaker 2 (04:22):
So what's the next step. Plainly, we want our youth,
be it boy or girl, to be engaged in physical
activity of some formal shape. It is important if we've
got a bunch falling off a cliff. For one of
a better phrase, how do we arrest that fall.
Speaker 3 (04:40):
Yeah, well, I think, you know, the support her campaign
from two Degrees is a really good start. I love
what they're doing. I'm loving being involved in it with
all the different merchandise that they've got and they're bringing
out where we're talking about it being like wearable sports psychology,
where there's some good self.
Speaker 4 (04:56):
Talk readen on the front of that merchandise.
Speaker 3 (04:58):
So that kind of gets people talking about it, bringing
the awareness around it, and we're just creating some resources
aligned with them, so that can really help. Sometimes. I
think that it would be kind of good, you know,
of parenting courses to try and to try and learn
how to be a parent. It'd be really good if
we continue some more education around how to be a
good sports parent or helpful sports parents. So there's some
(05:18):
nice little tips that we've actually put on that two
Degrees website to be able to help out and I
think probably bespoken with coach development as well around how
we can talk and how we can set up training
sessions to really benefit the girls, which will help them
in terms of having fun and a sense of belonging
and building their resilience and confidence as well.
Speaker 2 (05:38):
You'd expect that the sense of belonging would be huge,
and I say that as a father of fourteen year
old girl, that would probably be the most important thing.
Boys are most interested in dominating and being the best
where you work in a team environment. Women tend to
want to be sexist around this, but that they tend
(05:58):
to react in a lot better situation in groups. So
team sport will be ideal for them, wouldn't you.
Speaker 3 (06:04):
Yeah, yeah, it's perfect and that's that, And you're exactly right.
That sense of belonging is so important to keeping young
girls in sport. But it's the comparison that sometimes that
will go on that makes it really hard to feel
that sense of belonging. So one of the tips is
find her tribe. So rather than trying to find you know,
a team that is really performing really well and winning
a league, or you know a training group that's always
(06:27):
at the top, winning the medals and things like that,
find team where there's more of a sense of belonging,
where there's a better fit, and you're going to keep
the girls in the sport for a little bit longer.
And that's that's so important. I see that all the
time as well. When I go down to the football field,
you know with with my kids, it's just that sense
of belonging, that fun, you know, the oranges and the
and the lollies. I often think we should try and
(06:49):
make you know, the car trip on the on, you know,
car pooling is a really cool way to kind of
get you know, the girls really connected and having some fun.
A friend of mine once said to me that it
should getting ready for SAT Day sports should be like
almost going getting ready to go to the beach? Is
there the same fear in the car when you're able
to do that? And I really like that sense, and
(07:10):
if we can build that more with our girls, that'd
be absolutely fantastic.
Speaker 2 (07:13):
What about heroes, we're joined by Dom Vatis, he's a
sports psychologist. You look at young men and because the
high profile of male sporting characters, they've got somebody to
look towards, someone to idolize, if you will, do you
have that same situation in women's sport? Is the profile
(07:34):
high enough for successful women in order to lift people
up and be those heroes?
Speaker 4 (07:40):
Yeah? I think it's I definitely think it's improving.
Speaker 3 (07:42):
And we've got a lot of fantastic female sportswomen that
are doing amazing things and getting out there and doing
talks at schools and even reading books.
Speaker 4 (07:51):
You see them down aims, games and things like that.
Speaker 3 (07:54):
We've got a couple of amazing spokespeople in terms of
vow Adams and Taylor Dalton that will be helping out
with the Supporters Club. So yeah, there's some really good,
really good female role models out there. Ruby twe is
another one who's been really vocal around you know, being
an amazing role model for some of these girls and
(08:14):
getting them involved in sport. So I think the more
that we can kind of bring them out into the community,
the better.
Speaker 2 (08:21):
It's an alarming quote from you. You said, a lot
of girls, which is heartbreaking, say my parents love me
more when I do better at my sport. That's not ideal,
but that's a natural thing for I'd suggest men like
male dads through more so than mum. So this is
(08:42):
something that can be controlled from that parental situation. It's
not about a result, It's about an engagement more than
anything else. I don't believe though that the kids would
say that.
Speaker 3 (08:52):
Yep, Unfortunately that's true where they say it. Whether that's
necessarily true is another thing. But what is important is
that's the perception, you know, And that's the sad reality
of how some people are perceiving this sport.
Speaker 4 (09:05):
I do better, I get more attention when I perform better.
When I score goals.
Speaker 3 (09:10):
Mum and Dad talk to me a little bit more,
and my coach will seep to me a little bit more,
whereas we probably shouldn't be focusing on that when it's
coming to participation in young girls and young in sport.
Speaker 2 (09:21):
One last thing for you, Domin, thanks so much for
your time and your expertise here on sports Talk. When
you look across this, how much of it is girls
dropping away from sport or girls wanted to be engaged
in something completely different, like the way their school groups work,
the way their maturity and development works. They've got better
(09:43):
things to do than play sport. You see what I'm
saying there.
Speaker 3 (09:47):
Yeah, I get it again. I don't know the data
on you know, exactly the reason. If there's some unnecessarily
some other distractions, some other things that are going on
for them, and that's more of the reason. But certainly,
you know, at least we're looking at the data around
the participation, and yes, as I said at the start,
there's some added complications at that age. You know, there
(10:07):
are academia demands and NCAA and things like that that
are coming up. But again you know, the skills that
they will be learning through sport around communication, teamwork, resilience.
They are amazing skills that can be built into you know,
how they study, how they build relationships and how they
go on throughout life.
Speaker 2 (10:26):
Outstanding Mahi mate, Well done, Thanks very much for joining
us on the program as well. You look after yourself.
Speaker 4 (10:31):
Appreciate your time, Darcy. Thank you for more from Sports Talk.
Speaker 1 (10:35):
Listen live to News Talks it'd be from seven pm weekdays,
or follow the podcast on iHeartRadio
Popular Podcasts
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
My Favorite Murder with Karen Kilgariff and Georgia Hardstark
My Favorite Murder is a true crime comedy podcast hosted by Karen Kilgariff and Georgia Hardstark. Each week, Karen and Georgia share compelling true crimes and hometown stories from friends and listeners. Since MFM launched in January of 2016, Karen and Georgia have shared their lifelong interest in true crime and have covered stories of infamous serial killers like the Night Stalker, mysterious cold cases, captivating cults, incredible survivor stories and important events from history like the Tulsa race massacre of 1921. My Favorite Murder is part of the Exactly Right podcast network that provides a platform for bold, creative voices to bring to life provocative, entertaining and relatable stories for audiences everywhere. The Exactly Right roster of podcasts covers a variety of topics including historic true crime, comedic interviews and news, science, pop culture and more. Podcasts on the network include Buried Bones with Kate Winkler Dawson and Paul Holes, That's Messed Up: An SVU Podcast, This Podcast Will Kill You, Bananas and more.
The Joe Rogan Experience
The official podcast of comedian Joe Rogan.