Girls who participate in sports also excel in school, and are more likely to graduate than those that do not. This is because exercise improves learning abilities, memory and concentration, which helps them perform better academically. A 2004 study in the United States found that sports participation reduces the dropout rate for female students in classes 8 to 12. Sports participation helps girls in improving their self-confidence because they instill optimism in them and help them achieve their personal best.

Sports provide girls a core group of buddies, integrating them, as Catholic University researchers Sandra Hanson and Rebecca Kraus argue, into male-type “networks that are larger, less intimate and more based on achievement”. These groups are different from the small, intense friendship groups based on building and maintaining relationships, to which young girls are naturally drawn. This type of network may give female athletes an edge, Hanson and Kraus argue, in other areas of achievement as well.

In a recent study, 80 per cent of female Fortune 500 executives identified themselves as former “tomboys.” Playing any sport leads to interaction and this way, girls can make new friends as well.