Watch my cartwheel, now. Researchers found that girls who participate in high-impact sports like gymnastics before puberty had greater bone density than girls who primarily engaged in low-impact activities. The gymnasts also had lower body fat, and girls in artistic gymnastics had more muscle mass than their peers. Apparently engaging in activities that put stress on bones helped them become more dense. Dense bones are good for preventing osteoporosis later in life.
Okay, before we all run out and sign on the little ones for back-flip camp, check this out from the study author: "This doesn't mean, however, that the tumbling of artistic gymnastics is
necessarily 'healthier' for girls, according to Vicente-Rodriguez.
Instead, he said, children should take up a variety of activities, with
both low and high impact." Jessica already told you about the problems with year-round training in one sport. And I'm gonna tell you another thing about gymnastics: the coaching style and culture of a portion of those folks is seriously effed up. Not all, of course, but there's some sports and activities (ballet also springs to mind) where temperamental and abusive trainers are more often given a pass, where eating disorders are encouraged, and where the well-being of injured girls takes a backseat to the drive to succeed. In my fitness forays I've encountered former kid-gymnasts, and some have been truly wrecked both physically and emotionally by the sport. So if you are interested in enrolling your girls in gymnastics, just make sure you vet the program carefully, and should things go the competitive route, help your daughters keep things in perspective. They might want intact knees when they are thirty.
