Thank you very much for the question.
Young girls do go through many physiological changes around the age of 13. Their level of self-confidence and self-expression starts falling.
Moreover, a five-year-old girl has a lot of confidence and expresses herself a lot. With age and increased social awareness, though, her self-expression decreases. This is reflected in not wanting to compete with her peer group because competition is seen as socially disruptive. It causes friction between friends.
The environment has to change. Various possibilities have been suggested. We must not limit our focus to competition. Young girls want to develop in the social context of sports, but they are not necessarily interested in high- performance sport. We need sports activities where girls can be with their friends. They must not be required to participate in all competitions and in the next provincial championship.
Sports federations must have a structure that supports young girls. Socialization is very strong at school. In Quebec and Ontario, there is a fantastic organization called Fitspirit that promotes jogging for young girls at school.
Young people spend a lot of time at school. So we must continue to use this platform to expose them to sport. The time allotted to gym classes has been greatly reduced, which does not help.
In my opinion, we should focus on these aspects. We must continue to promote exercise by calling on well-known personalities as role models and must make sure that we offer sports outlets for girls at school where they are already with their friends. They need an environment that is not competitive but rather that is suited to the personality and ambitions of every kind of girl.