Dance/Cheer Participation, Self-Esteem, and Depressive Symptoms Among Physically Active Adolescent Girls

Abstract

Physical activity is associated with adolescent mental wellness; however, these associations may vary by activity context. In this study, we examined whether dance/cheer participation was associated with depressive symptoms and self-esteem among physically active adolescent girls in comparison to participation in other sports. We analyzed Wave I public-use data from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent to Adult Health using survey-weighted linear regression. The analytic sample for each outcome included 1,029 participants (309 dance/cheer participants and 720 other-sport participants). We estimated models before and after adjustment for physical activity frequency and sociodemographic characteristics. In the fully adjusted models, dance/cheer participation was associated with a 0.84-point higher self-esteem score (95% CI [0.13, 1.55]), whereas the estimated 0.98-point lower depressive-symptom score was imprecise (95% CI [-2.08, 0.12]). Thus, these cross-sectional findings deliver modest evidence that self-esteem, but not depressive symptoms, differed between the two activity groups and support further longitudinal study of activity context.