Among sports participants age seven and older, females constitute a majority of participants in four of six fitness activities surveyed for 2003 by the National Sporting Goods Association (NSGA), according to NSGA Vice President of Information & Research Thomas B. Doyle. After aerobic exercising (75%), females represented 50% or more of participants in exercise walking, working out at a club and exercising with equipment, where they represent 63%, 55% and 54% of participants, respectively.

In the other primary fitness activity, running/jogging, women represent 46% of the participants. Only in weightlifting did females fall far behind males in participation, with just 35% of weightlifters being female.

Other activities in which women were a majority of the adult participants were t’ai chi/yoga (83%), kickboxing (81%), ice/figure skating (64%), volleyball (56%) and swimming (53%).

There were six other sports and activities in which females represent 45%-49% of participants. They are: cross country skiing (48%), bowling (48%), camping (47%), scooter riding (47%), hiking (47%), inline skating (47%), softball (46%), tennis (46%), and bicycle riding (46%).

Sports previously surveyed but not surveyed in 2003 in which females represented more than 50% of participants include step aerobics, badminton and calisthenics.

For the study, a participant is defined as someone seven or older who participates in a sport more than once within the year. For swimming, exercise walking, bicycling, exercising with equipment, running/jogging, calisthenics and aerobics, a participant is defined as one who is active in a sport six times or more within the year.

The two-part sports participation report is based on a survey of 20,000 U.S. households. In addition to the number of participants and frequency of participation, the report provides demographics by age, gender, education, presence of children, metro areas, household income and region of the country. The report includes information on Internet usage of sports participants. The report is available to NSGA members for $395, and to non-members for $475.