Nearly 90 percent of parents surveyed in a 2015 poll by Harvard University, National Public Radio, and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation reported that sports helped their children stay healthy, while 81 percent said sports instilled discipline in their kids
In fact, teen athletes do tend to be physically fit and stay busy and out of trouble, says Donna Merkel, a sports clinical specialist who wrote about the impact of youth sports for the Open Access Journal of Sports Medicine.
