A crisis of body confidence is leading to 45% of teenage girls dropping out of sport. An exodus which is twice the rate of boys giving up on sport.

This is the statistic which sits at the heart of a new campaign from Nike and Dove ‘Body Confident Sport’. The global initiative aims to reach one million girls with a simple aim: to stem the flood of girls from dropping out of sport because of body image concerns.

The programme identifies coaches as the key influencers in this change and aims to give the tools to help girls to shift the conversation from what their bodies look like to what their bodies can do. It aims to achieve this goal through an open-sourced set of coaching tools for 11 to 17 year old girls, all designed to improve their body confidence.

Sport can be a powerful force in a girl’s life. Girls who participate in physical activity and maintain that participation through adolescence are more likely to have higher body confidence and experience positive health benefits throughout their lives.

A crisis of confidence 

However, the research shows that when puberty hits girls experience unique and significant changes to their bodies. These can include their first period, new curves and breast development. These are all experiences which mean that girls can feel self-conscious about their appearance and exposed and vulnerable to judgement and comparison. This can be amplified in sports environments, both on and off the field.

New research from Nike and Dove shows that the biggest reason girls drop out is the impact the sports environment can have on their body confidence and self-esteem. To change that experience the brands’ research underlines that coaches are uniquely positioned to help positively influence girls’ perceptions of their bodies. According to Nike and Dove’s research, 74% of girls say their coach was the reason they felt more confident.

Body Confident Sport, a first-of-its-kind set of coaching tools for 11- to 17-year-old girls that will help build their body confidence and make them feel like sport is a place where they belong.

It was co-developed by Nike and Dove over two years in partnership with experts including the Centre for Appearance Research and the Tucker Center for Research on Girls & Women in Sport — and includes input from nearly 5,000 adolescents across France, India, Japan, Mexico, the United Kingdom and the United States. The online tool includes coaching steps that were scientifically proven to improve self-esteem and body confidence in clinical trials with over 1,200 girls.

Vanessa Garcia-Brito, Vice President and Chief Social and Community Impact Officer at Nike, explains: “By shifting the conversation from what their bodies look like to what their bodies can do, we inspire more girls to stay in sport and benefit from it. With more girls in sports, we believe we’re creating the next generation of female leaders and changemakers who will move the world forward.”

The partnership builds on Nike’s focus on increasing girls’ participation in play and sport. Crucially this also includes a dedicated drive to recruit and train more representative coaches. While Dove’s brand positioning as a champion of self-esteem also leans into the programme's goals.

Earlier this month, Nike launched “You Got This,” a YouTube series with and for 10- to 13-year-old girls that uses the power of sport to help them find confidence and a sense of self. The campaign began a partnership with Spotify that aims to inspire 10- to 17-year-old girls in the United Kingdom to use dance to move regularly. 

Nike and Dove’s open-source Body Confident Sport tool is available, free of charge, at bodyconfidentsport.com.