Why staying active is the real teenage dream
July 31, 2025 | 5 min read
Béatrice Bilodeau started playing hockey at five years old, and hasn’t stopped. Today, she competes as part the women’s team at the University of Ottawa, where she is in medical school. “When I don’t get my little moments of physical activity in the day, I can feel it,” Béatrice says. “I’m more tired, and as my family will probably tell you, I’m a little annoying. It feels like my day is missing something.”
Her younger sister, Laura, has a similarly sporty bio and today swims competitively as a student at Université Sherbrooke. “It just feels good to put time and energy into taking care of my body,” Laura says. “When I have to get back to my studies, I think I’m more able to concentrate and focus.”
As young women who have always prioritized physical activity, Béatrice and Laura buck the trend.
The Public Health Agency of Canada recommends teenagers get at least an hour of moderate to vigorous physical activity every day.1 Few get it—especially girls. The World Health Organization reports that 85 per cent of female adolescents don’t meet minimum exercise guidelines, compared with 78 per cent of males.2 And according to Canadian Women & Sport, the share of girls who play organized sport in Canada drops from 68 per cent in the tween years (ages nine to 12) to just 36 percent among young women (ages 19 to 26). For boys, the drop is significantly less: From 70 per cent to 57 per cent in the same age cohorts.3
“Girls go through specific barriers when they’re trying to be more active,” explains Geneviève Leduc, Ph. D. and Senior Advisor of Programs and Expert in Physical Activity for Girls at FitSpirit, a Quebec-based charity that operates non-competitive extracurricular exercise clubs for girls between the ages of 12 and 17. (Manulife is a proud supporter of FitSpirit’s work, and Béatrice and Laura both volunteer with the organization.)
Leduc says that the unique developmental changes that female teen bodies experience can prohibit participation. “For girls, puberty brings breasts, perspiration, PMS, menstruation, and body hair. When you’re in an environment that don’t take these things into account, it can be really hard to stay active.” She adds that many girls experience insecurity about their abilities, worries about what their friends will think, and discomfort with competition once the teen years hit. Plus, in many communities, there are simply fewer options for active girls than for boys.
Organizations like FitSpirit are helping to bridge the gap by offering practical opportunities for adolescent girls to integrate more exercise in the daily routines—because everyone wins when more girls get, and stay, moving.
Here are four big reasons why.
Exercise helps girls feel better in their bodies
Regular activity brings a range of immediate physical health benefits for all teens, including supporting important developments to motor skills, muscle growth, and musculoskeletal health.4 And it can create a positive habit loop: Teens tend to feel more energy when they move a lot, which makes them more likely to keep moving. “Physical activity will help you feel better on a day-to-day basis,” says Leduc. “When teen girls start feel that for themselves, it can be very powerful.”
Keep learning: 5 ways to turn physical activity for teens into a life-long habit
Experts from Quebec’s FitSpirit and Olympic champion Maude Charron share how to encourage physical activity and healthy habits in teenagers.
Regular movement can also help teen girls be more comfortable in bodies that can otherwise feel foreign and confusing. Olympic champion Maude Charron learned this as a teen—first a gymnast and then as a weightlifter. “Exercise makes you feel better about yourself,” says Charron, who took part in the recent FitSpirit Celebration in Montreal. “You feel you are achieving something. You feel stronger. You feel more in control of your own body.”
Such feelings helped fuel Charron’s success as an elite athlete: She won a Gold medal at the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games and a Silver at Paris 2024, among other international podium finishes. But she is quick to emphasize that you don’t have to have any interest in competition at all to get the benefits of movement: “I came to understand that exercise gives me confidence,” she says. “I’m just so proud of what my body can do.”
Exercise improves teen mental health
When Leduc asks FitSpirit participants how they sell the benefits of physical activity to their friends, the answer almost always relates to one thing: it improves their mental health. “They talk about how it clears their minds, and what it does to reduce their stress levels,” Leduc explains.
This is no small thing, since mental health in teenage girls is a growing concern . One-third of girls aged 12 to 17 self-report mild to moderate mental health challenges, compared to 19% of boys in the same age cohort.5 Teenage girls are three times as likely as boys to live with anxiety disorders,6 twice as likely to experience mood disorders,7 and 10 times more likely to be hospitalized for eating disorders.8
Exercise unleashes a range of hormonal and physiological reactions that can help teens manage and minimize the symptoms of mental health disorders.9 Moreover, it can play a role in interrupting unproductive behaviours and unhealthy thought patterns. “Exercise can break you out of that spinning wheel of feeling bad about yourself,” Charron says. “It’s true that it sometimes feels awful to get out and move. But afterwards, you’ll feel way better.”
Exercise can give girls community
Despite the connection between adolescents and rebellion, most teens crave community10 and contribution11 as their brains develop and mature. Adolescent girls are particularly predisposed to seek out peer approval and feelings of belonging.12 It’s a healthy impulse: Forging strong social connections has positive impacts on the physical13 and mental14 health.
Sport and exercise can create healthy environments to develop and strengthen teenage girls’ social connections—whether they’re chatting in the locker room, goofing off on the soccer pitch, or just going for a walk with a few friends. “Girls are simply more likely to take part in physical activity when the social aspect is there,” Leduc explains.
Charron learned the role of social connection on her wellbeing in her early adolescence, when she was part of competitive gymnastics team. The all-girls space became an organic environment to discuss topics that felt awkward to bring up elsewhere—like periods, crushes, and bra troubles. “It was really comforting to be surrounded by girls all experiencing the same challenges—and to be able to share experiences and knowledge with one another, without judgment,” she says.
Exercise paves the road for a healthier future
Teens don’t generally like to think too much about aging or mortality, but it’s worth noting physical activity in the teen years can reduce the risk of chronic illness down the line, including cardiovascular disease15 (which is the leading cause of premature death in Canadian women16), as well as cancer, diabetes, and depression.17
Leduc says adolescence is a prime time to establish healthier patterns of behaviour: “Research shows that when you experiment with healthy lifestyle habits as a child or as a teenager, those habits are more likely to track into adulthood, especially when we’re talking about sports and physical activity.”
There are many ways to get teens in the habit of moving more, but importantly, it can’t feel like a chore. When teen girls love what they’re doing—whether it’s basketball, yoga, dance, or stand-up paddleboarding—they’re far more likely to stick with it over time. “The fun factor has to be a priority,” Leduc explains
Simply put: When teen girls remain active, they are investing in themselves, says Elise Bourret, Global Head of Fund Services Operations at Manulife Investment Management, who took part in the FitSpirit events. “It’s a form of prevention against disease that can come from inactivity, and it will help them to benefit from all life has to offer, as long as possible.”
The FitSpirit effect
FitSpirit has a mission to help teenage girls stay physically active, to create unforgettable experiences, and to build supportive communities of inspirational, committed individuals. It works with more than 300 schools across Quebec to offer non-competitive and fun extracurricular physical activity for girls aged 12 to 17 years old. In the past year alone, more than 10,000 participants took part.
Because the program is meant to be fun and accessible, it works: A longitudinal research study conducted with the Université Montreal found that, over the course of a school year, FitSpirit participants add an average of 30 days of meeting WHO physical guidelines. “We give girls a positive experience with physical activity—sometimes, their first,” says Genevieve Leduc, Senior Advisor, Programs at FitSpirit. “And fingers crossed, they’ll keep being active.”
Aligned to our impact agenda, and focus on empowering sustained health and well-being, Manulife is helping FitSpirit improve engagement and impact in Indigenous communities in Quebec, where there are cultural nuances and traditions driving further barriers to young Indigenous girls' living a healthy and active lifestyle. Additionally, Manulife is proud to be the presenting sponsor of FitSpirit celebrations.
This article is for informational purposes only. It is not intended to diagnose or treat a condition. If you have questions or concerns about your specific situation or are seeking medical advice, contact your medical doctor or your healthcare provider.
A note about gender:
While we use the term “women,” “girls,” “men” and “boys” in this article, we recognize that these terms are not inclusive of all gender identities and that the health issues addressed here may be relevant to individuals across the gender spectrum.