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Preventing and reducing childhood obesity, nurturing girls’ confidence, and empowering them to avoid substance use: Can one program help youth build these healthy habits?  

It might sound impossible, but Girls on the Run is doing just that.  

Girls on the Run (GOTR) organizes running teams for third to eighth grade girls across the country, empowering them with a program that promotes both physical and mental well-being. The Northern Virginia chapter (GOTR NOVA) serves upwards of 4,000 girls across more than one hundred locations in eight counties and cities every year.  

VFHY provides grant funding to the Loudoun Pediatric Obesity Coalition, which supports the Northern Virginia chapter of GOTR. According to Monserrat Hellman, senior health educator and policy coordinator at the Loudoun County Health Department and coordinator of the coalition, it’s important to support community partners like GOTR that are doing the groundwork to prevent childhood obesity through nutrition and physical activity.  

But GOTR is more than a childhood obesity intervention. It’s also a driver of youth empowerment.  

Research supports a deep link between youth empowerment and physical activity, especially group exercise. GOTR’s own research has found their program to have overwhelmingly positive effects, including that the vast majority of girls in the program report learning critical life skills and improved confidence, character development, and connection with others.  

And girls are especially in need of empowerment. The latest Virginia Youth Survey (VYS) of middle school students reveals that girls are seriously struggling emotionally. More than 26% of girls surveyed said their mental health was “always or most of the time not good,” compared to about 11% of boys. 

In contrast to historical trends, these struggles are leading girls to use substances at greater rates than boys and engage in more risk-taking behaviors. The VYS found that middle school girls were all using different kinds of substances, including e-cigarettes, cannabis, and prescription drugs, at greater rates than boys.  

The VYS also shows that most girls are not getting enough exercise: Only about half of middle school girls were active at least an hour most days, and 10% did not get 60 minutes of physical activity on any day in the week preceding the survey.  

Poor mental health, substance use, physical inactivity: These are all connected. Taken together, these distressing statistics illustrate that girls are suffering from a serious lack of self-esteem.  

These findings aren’t surprising to Caroline Woods, executive director of GOTR Northern Virginia. She cites studies that show girls’ confidence starts to plummet around age nine or ten – the same age that GOTR’s programs begin. Girls also tend to drop out of organized sports at a much earlier age than boys, leaving them without those community-building and confidence-boosting benefits.  

But Girls on the Run is one place where girls can find the support they need to thrive. Much more than an exercise program, GOTR dedicates time during each practice to helping participants build critical skills, focusing on weekly themes like positive self-talk, empathy, and managing difficult emotions.  

When asked what they learned about themselves at GOTR, the young participants expressed how their confidence grew throughout the program, saying they learned things like “That I can do hard things and succeed even when it hurts or gets difficult” and that “I am stronger than I thought.”  

GOTR also teaches the power of community engagement. Each season, teams take the lead in designing and implementing their own Community Impact Project, with coaches providing guidance and support rather than direct involvement. This empowers participants to make a change in their community and teaches them that even small actions can have a big impact.  

Now in its 25th year, GOTR NOVA is looking to the future. They’re hoping to connect with program alumni and build the GOTR community.  

“If we want to make lasting and institutional change, it can’t be with one generation. It has to be multiple generations of girls and women,” said Woods.