According to the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), sport can be a powerful tool to engage communities and prevent crime, violence and potentially drug use among youth.
In fact, sport, and physical activity more broadly, can be effective in promoting wellbeing and health, including mental health and reducing the risk of depression, as well as improve the cognitive functions and academic outcomes of young people and adolescents: https://www.unodc.org/dohadeclaration/en/news/2021/04/leveraging-sport-for-substance-use-prevention_-reviewing-the-evidence-at-the-commission-on-narcotic-drugs.html
Benefits & Limitations of Youth Sports
The benefits of youth sports participation are clear, including a broad range of positive mental, emotional, social, physical, educational, and career outcomes: https://odphp.health.gov/sites/default/files/2020-09/YSS_Report_OnePager_2020-08-31_web.pdf
But evidence is mixed as to whether sports can be effective in preventing substance use, and in some cases sports participation is linked to increased use of substances: https://www.ccsa.ca/sites/default/files/2019-04/CCSA-Youth-Sport-and-Sustance-Use-Summary-2017-en.pdf
That’s why we recommend the use of evidence-based substance use/misuse prevention programs like SPORT and InShape Prevention Plus Wellness (PPW) which promote alternative healthy behaviors needed by youth and young adults participating in sports.
Prevention Plus Wellness has joined the National Youth Sports Strategy (NYSS) which aims to unite U.S. youth sports culture around a shared vision, which is that one day, all youth will have the opportunity, motivation, and access to play sports: https://odphp.health.gov/our-work/nutrition-physical-activity/national-youth-sports-strategy/about-national-youth-sports-strategy
The NYSS vision is enhanced by providing evidence-based programs like SPORT and InShape PPW that prevent substance use/misuse and promote healthy lifestyle behaviors.
Advantages of SPORT & InShape PPW
The SPORT (Substance Prevention Optimizing Resiliency Training) program for youths and the InShape PPW program for college/young adults were designed to help young people avoid harmful substance use/misuse while increasing their healthy lifestyle behaviors necessary for enhancing performance in athletics and school, as well as improving overall physical and mental fitness.
PPW provides the only one-session evidence-based substance use/misuse prevention programs that holistically promote lifelong physical activity and sports participation, healthy nutrition, sleep and stress control within a single, cost-effective intervention.
Avoiding substance use/misuse and practicing healthy lifestyle behaviors are essential to performance and success in sports, school, career, and relationships as well as living a full and long life.
SPORT and InShape PPW are being implemented in school and community sports, sports physical exams, physical education, camps, gyms, wellness centers and wilderness/nature programs across the US.
Practical and flexible, PPW programs can be provided to young people in groups and one-on-one as SBIRT (Screening, Brief Intervention & Referral to Treatment), or virtually either live or on-demand.
They also come in adaptations addressing e-cigarette, marijuana and opioid use/misuse prevention, and include online pretest and posttest surveys to assess and monitor program outcomes.
SPORT and InShape PPW programs can be provided by prevention professionals or teachers, coaches, parents, youth leaders, counselors, nurses, fitness specialists, or anyone who completes one of our brief online self-paced program implementer training courses.
In addition, our online interactive versions of SPORT and InShape PPW can be provided to young people digitally on-demand and require no implementer training.
Conclusion
Youth and young adult participation in sports and other forms of physical activity is essential to their mental and physical wellbeing, performance and happiness.
However, sports’ role in preventing or in some cases increasing substance use/misuse is unclear.
That’s why it’s important to integrate substance use/misuse prevention and healthy lifestyle promotion into sports and fitness programs for youth people.
SPORT and InShape PPW offer practical evidence-based programs that can easily fit within sports, fitness and wellness settings for improving the whole-health and performance of young people.
Learn more about SPORT PPW: https://preventionpluswellness.com/products/evidence-based-alcohol-drug-sport-prevention-plus-wellness
Learn more about InShape PPW: https://preventionpluswellness.com/products/evidence-based-alcohol-drug-inshape-prevention-plus-wellness