In the Peanuts comic strip, Charlie Brown was never able to kick the football, fly a kite properly or lead a baseball team. He was also sad and often the target of ridicule from his peers. A new Canadian study looking at the connections between athletic skill and social acceptance among school children confirms that Chuck’s problems were true to life: kids place a great deal of value on athletic ability, and youngsters deemed unskilled by their peers often experience sadness, isolation and social rejection at school.

Les enfants doués pour les activités sportives sont mieux acceptés par les autres que ceux qui ne le sont pas.

“For both boys and girls, we found that popular children reported less loneliness and received higher athletic ability ratings from their peers than rejected children,” says lead researcher Janice Causgrove Dunn, from the Faculty of Physical & Recreation at the University of Alberta. “Conversely, the kids who reported higher levels of loneliness tended to receive lower athletic ability ratings and lower social acceptance ratings from their peers.”

Source : Eurekalert.