NSGA Sports Participation: Women Dominate Fitness Activities

MOUNT PROSPECT, IL – Among sports participants age seven and older, females constitute a majority of participants in four of six fitness activities surveyed for 2007 by the National Sporting Goods Association (NSGA), according to data in the new NSGA Sports Participation reports. After yoga (85%), females represented 50% or more of participants in aerobic exercising, exercise walking, working out at a club and exercising with equipment, where they represent 71%, 63%, 55% and 51% of participants, respectively.

In one other primary fitness activity, running/jogging, women represent 48% of the participants. Only in weightlifting did females fall significantly behind males in participation, with just 36% of those who lift weights being female.

Other activities in which women were a majority of participants were volleyball (58%), swimming (54%), inline skating (54%), lacrosse (53%) and bowling (50%).

“Women dominate fitness activities and have done so for a number of years,” said NSGA Vice President of Information & Research Thomas B. Doyle. “The addition of yoga to the survey this year and the female dominance in that and other fitness activities suggests that women are far more serious about fitness than their male counterparts.”

There were nine other sports and activities in which females represent 45%-49% of participants. They are: kayaking (49%), camping (49%), hiking (49%), softball (48%), cross country skiing (47%), bicycle riding (47%), tennis (47%), camping (49%), and scooter riding (45%).

Exercise walking drew the greatest number of female participants, 56.1 million. Swimming, 28.4 million, and exercising with equipment, 27.0 million, were next in line.

For the study, a participant is defined as someone seven or older who participates in a sport more than once within the year. For swimming, exercise walking, bicycling, exercising with equipment, running/jogging, weightlifting and aerobics, a participant is defined as one who is active in a sport six times or more within the year.

The two-part sports participation report is based on a survey of 20,000 U.S. households. In addition to the number of participants and frequency of participation, the report provides demographics by age, gender, education, presence of children, metro areas, household income and region of the country. The report is available to NSGA members for $395, and to non-members for $495.

State-by-State and LifeCycle Demographics reports are also available in the Sports Participation series.

A chart can be downloaded from the NSGA website, www.nsga.org.

For more information, contact the Dan Kasen in the NSGA Information Center, (847) 296-6742 ext 108, or e-mail: dkasen@nsga.org.

National Sporting Goods Association
1601 Feehanville Drive, #300
Mount Prospect, IL 60056
Ph: 847-296-6742, Ext. 129
Larry Weindruch, CAE
Director of Communications
lweindruch@nsga.org

About NSGA:
NSGA, which has served the sporting goods industry since 1929, organizes and hosts the annual NSGA Management Conference & Team Dealer Summit, the sporting goods industry’s premier educational and networking event (Next: May 3-6, 2009, at the Westin La Cantera Resort in San Antonio, Texas).

For more information on NSGA member services, visit the Association home page (www.nsga.org); call Rhonda Onuszko at NSGA, (847) 296-6742, Ext. 131; e-mail: ronuszko@nsga.org; or fax (847) 391-9827.

This release was published on openPR.