Dove’s Self-Esteem Project and Nike have teamed up to tackle a key hurdle that many girls have to overcome in sports.

The brands have come together to launch “Body Confident Sport,” an online coaching program that offers girls 11 to 17 a first-of-its-kind set of coaching tools to help empower them and build confidence in their bodies. The program was co-developed by the brands over two years and addresses findings about how sports can impact the body confidence and self-esteem of teen girls.

The program represents a logical next step for the beauty brand. Under its Self-Esteem Project, Dove has focused heavily on building confidence and self-esteem in girls, most recently in its celebrated “Cost of Beauty” campaign.

The brands will have help from their ambassadors: tennis superstar Venus Williams for Dove and American Olympic gymnast Laurie Hernandez for Nike.

While many of those efforts previously focused on social media, the brand has “a responsibility to support girls wherever their self-esteem is at stake,” says Alessandro Manfredi, CMO at Dove.

“Dove has been working to arm the next generation with tools to build body confidence and self-esteem so that no young person is held back,” he says. “Sport has the potential to make girls feel confident and strong, yet for so many, the judgment and criticism they face within the sports environment is damaging their confidence and limiting their self-belief.”

Manfredi’s comments are supported by data from the brands’ research, which shows that 44% of girls dropped out of a sport because they were told they don’t have the right body for it, while 45% were objectified or judged based on their physical appearance. Half of girls who dropped out of a sport were told they weren’t good enough to play.

At the same time, the statistics show that two out of three girls believed they would be more body confident if they had stayed in sport.

Co-developed by the two brands with support from global experts at the Centre for Appearance Research (UWE Bristol) and Tucker Center for Research on Girls & Women in Sport (University of Minnesota), the program is built on the understanding that good coaches can be key to keeping girls involved.

This understanding is fed by further data from the brands, which show that 79% of girls attribute their coaches for feeling more confident, while 64% say they’d be interested in hearing from coaches about body confidence education.

Through the program, the brands hope to shift the thinking of girls in sport “from what their bodies look like to what their bodies can do,” says Vanessa Garcia-Brito, VP and chief social and community impact officer for Nike.

“Globally, girls face complex cultural and social barriers, and they also enter sport later and drop out of sport earlier,” she says. “By shifting the conversation … we believe we’re creating the next generation of female leaders and changemakers who will move the world forward.”

Edelman is handling PR for the partnership.