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[quote=Anonymous]Sports is the American obsession, descended from the Anglo-Saxon insistence that public school (private, elite, but that's Britain for you) physical education built character and made boys into men. The whole idea of sports in history is steeped in toxic masculinity.

Americans have made it all their own, however, because college sports is big money. Most US universities build their brand and make money off some team college sports, and therefore wish to recruit promising athletes, often over more academically qualified applicants. Athletic admissions often take place before general admissions, actually. Even if families are not consciously aware that one of the goals is to increase a child's profile for college, kid sports have become part of the fabric of US society.

Additionally, with more awareness of the benefits of exercise, many families mistakenly believe that more sports = healthier kids. They push sports to an extreme, while eating tons of processed foods and forgetting to teach their kids to moderate their calorie intake. Indeed, I've seen plenty of parents who push their kids to eat a ton because they are involved in multiple high-intensity sports. And then I've seen previously athletic adults become overweight and develop diabetes and heart disease because they never relearned healthy eating habits when they started working full-time and stopped exercising as much. Nutrition is more important than exercise, always and for ever, but that is information most Americans are not exposed to, due to limits on public health campaigns and lobbying by the food industry. Finally, injuries due to repetitive movements and intense exercise have been on the rise for years, due to children being pushed to their limits with competitive sports. That too is a serious issue.

Building character, teamwork, critical thinking can be done in a myriad of different ways. Kids need to work and think together in chorus, orchestra, band, robotics, math and science competitions, etc. Yet most parents believe that sports teach more and better values than other activities, which is perfectly untrue.

One last consideration: if you are worried about how intensively extra-curriculars are pursued here in the US, it's because, again, American colleges consider extra-curriculars in admissions. You can have the best academic record, you will not get into a selective college if you did nothing outside of school. This is markedly different from nearly all other countries's university selection process, which are purely academic in nature. This drives a huge industry of after-school activities, so that children can distinguish themselves in many different areas. Sports is notoriously intense, but so is music, or all other hobbies, if selective college admission is your goal. College admissions have become extremely cut-throat, and have nothing to do with the more casual admission process of 40 years ago.

- foreigner who had a completely different childhood, but whose kids are living this experience and applying to college in the US.
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