Whether you know her for wearing a red jersey for Cork, as a coach on Ireland’s Fittest Family or bopping her way across the dance floor on Dancing With the Stars, over the last few years, Anna Geary has become a name we all know and love.
Just like us here at SHONA, Anna aims to empower the young girls of Ireland to stay involved in sport and has created a new two-part documentary called “Why Girls Quit Sport” which focuses on the massive dropout rates for teenage girls. The documentary – airing this Thursday night on RTÉ 2 at 9:30 pm – focuses on Anna’s attempt to rally a new Gaelic football team of young girls from a secondary school in Dublin.
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In an interview with the Irish Examiner, Anna says “This documentary was an eye-opener for me, I am probably one of the most competitive people you will ever meet. But the girls made me realise that sport isn’t just about that. If you focus on the winning and losing, you will lose people,”.
Anna learns something important that we always highlight when talking about this topic. Competition is not everything, especially in sport. It’s an opportunity to use your body to feel good, enjoy yourself and meet new friends. Speaking on her Instagram in recent days, Anna mentions “Everybody should feel included when it comes to physical activity and sport and we all need to be for our social mental and physical well-being.”.
What we love, is that Anna is super honest and has admitted this documentary has changed her way of thinking. Our resident health psychology expert, Orna Murray, says that parents, teachers and coaches, often make the mistake of training teenagers at an adult level and expecting similar results with a high level of pressure and seriousness placed on the players. This is similar to Anna’s original mindset. However, Anna also mentioned on her Instagram how this documentary showed her that sport is more than just winning or losing.
Anna believes the documentary will open people’s eyes and open up the discussion on why so many young girls quit sport in Ireland. To us? that is such an important message and we hope that this draws attention to the need to change how young girls think and feel about sport.
Are you as excited as us? Well, check out the trailer below, and we know you’ll be hitting that reminder button for Thursday night!
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