[gibspaulding]

Does anyone know of any studies on the long term health of children who go through programs like this? I see this sentiment a lot, and can even think of annecdotes of people this describes in my own life, but haven't seen much attempt at quantifying it.

A quick search is just showing studies on sports participation and children's health while they are still children (which seems to be resoundingly positive).

[cornholio]

I don't know how you would even approach that due to the huge selection bias.

Any kind of relevant metric, such as future injury of health, academic success in a non-sports-scolarship program, future propensity to crime etc etc. are strongly influenced if you simply are the kind of person that is likely to enroll into sports.