Youth Football

[disco]

I think everyone has their "no-way" sports as a parent. Mine is Hockey. The culture looks completely toxic and seems to teach the anti-lessons that you want in sports.

My parents wouldn't let me play hockey because of the culture and the cost, and that was 35 years ago.

I agree, the youth hockey culture is bad, but I think it gets a worse rap because it was the first, and it's been that way for so long. But that culture permeates many youth sports now (football is actually an exception). I know parents who dedicate that same amount of time to their kids basketball, soccer and swimming at the grade school level. It's year-round, takes up the majority of weekends and has the same crazy parents (the type of people I have little interest in socializing with).

I'm torn on letting the boy play hockey, simply because I absolutely love the game, despite having never played. I actually took my son to a local high school game tonight (he has the attention span of a gnat right now, so he's good for about a period and a half). He really wants to try soccer, so that's probably going to be first for him (and it's a lot of running around, which would be good.) The costs involved in hockey are just so brutal...

 

[Ole]

From the Atlantic article

If you think little guys don’t hit hard enough to hurt each other’s heads, think again. Virginia Tech researcher Stefan Duma put accelerometers into the helmets of the Auburn Eagles, a youth team—ages 7 and 8—in a town near campus. He found the typical player sustained 107 head impacts per season, most in practice. (Audiences see games; the majority of hits occur during drills and scrimmages.) Acceleration for the median hit equated to 15 times the force of gravity. Duma’s tykes recorded 38 impacts of at least 40 “gees” and six impacts of 80 times the force of gravity, which is 95th percentile for NCAA football contact.

In a society increasingly education-based, having millions of boys smashing each other’s heads from a very young age on—wearing helmets that were designed for adults and weigh more than helmets designed for children would—just cannot be good.

From Deadspin:

"Youngsters are not miniature adults," Cantu said. For starters, he explained, their brains are not fully myelinated, meaning their nerve cells lack the complete coating that offers protection. That makes them more susceptible to concussions and means they recover more slowly from them than adults. Cantu said children have big heads relative to the rest of their bodies and weak necks, creating a "bobblehead-doll effect" that elevates the risk of concussion. They typically play in the oldest equipment, with the least educated coaches, and with little or no available medical care. They are allowed to hit each other in practice—up to 40 minutes per session in Pop Warner football, under new guidelines—to a greater extent than NFL players are in season. And finally, kids are unable to provide meaningful informed consent. "Rarely do they really understand the risk they're taking," Cantu said.

1) That deadspin article is exactly what I'm referring to when I say that the media is scaring the crap out of parents without facts to back up their accusations.
Read the study on the kids helmets, for all that g force the author clearly expands on for dramatic affect, there were no concussion incurred during the study. G force doesn't equal CTE.
2)Cantu is assuming a lot, and admits it. He knows he has no proof, nor does anyone else that the CTE he has now dedicated his career to studying occurs in anyone other than grizzled NFL players from an era when this stuff wasn't even mentioned as a problem.
It's fascinating to me that the media is getting so far out there on this when quite simply the research doesn't support most of what they assert. Critical reading skills should be taught to all kids because the very nuanced BS that is spewed every day on the Internet is pretty impressive

 

[Spoofin]

A quick Google search will find you many many studies on this "new/unexamined" area. By places that are legit and specialize in medical studies and/or the brain. They show a)football is the most likely sport to obtain a concussion in (certainly not the only sport or activity, but the most likely); and b)concussions have both short term and long term effects on your brain.

Some will never agree, for a variety of reasons, but the evidence is there. It is simply whether you choose to look or ignore. I'm not saying kids shouldn't be allowed to play or they should shut down the sport, just amazed that some will try to deny what is fact.

 

[justthefacts]

A quick Google search will find you many many studies on this "new/unexamined" area. By places that are legit and specialize in medical studies and/or the brain. They show a)football is the most likely sport to obtain a concussion in (certainly not the only sport or activity, but the most likely); and b)concussions have both short term and long term effects on your brain.

Some will never agree, for a variety of reasons, but the evidence is there. It is simply whether you choose to look or ignore. I'm not saying kids shouldn't be allowed to play or they should shut down the sport, just amazed that some will try to deny what is fact.

Right. My favorite part is how people look at studies and say "well, that study didn't account for this" or "that study was too small" and then go on to say, "I once attended a football game and I don't think there were any people with head injuries." It's not about concussions. All the studies say you can get CTE without concussions. And 20 people saying they were really good football players and are OK now isn't going to persuade me.

You can also criticize the media for scaring people, but the 2 main studies have been done by the Boston University and are published in esoteric medical journals. Those publications are about science only:

http://www.neurology.org/content/early/2015/01/28/WNL.0000000000001358.short
http://online.liebertpub.com/doi/full/10.1089/neu.2014.3822

Yes, there are other things that can hurt your kids, but in those cases they're getting hurt accidentally or against the design of what they're doing. The repeated collisions of football are a part of the sport and are dangerous to kids.

If you want to take the risk, I'm fine with that and I understand. But at least be honest with yourself. For us, tackle football serves no role in my sons' lives that less dangerous sports don't also serve (including flag football), and their 1000000000x more likely to use their brain later in life than football skills.

 

[Ole]

A quick Google search will find you many many studies on this "new/unexamined" area. By places that are legit and specialize in medical studies and/or the brain. They show a)football is the most likely sport to obtain a concussion in (certainly not the only sport or activity, but the most likely); and b)concussions have both short term and long term effects on your brain.

Some will never agree, for a variety of reasons, but the evidence is there. It is simply whether you choose to look or ignore. I'm not saying kids shouldn't be allowed to play or they should shut down the sport, just amazed that some will try to deny what is fact.

I can appreciate you have made up your mind for your family, that's your call and good on you for sticking to your guns, but what you're saying here simply isn't true.
A Google search of concussions and football hit on many sites mostly advocacy sites, opinion pieces, and news articles.
A Google scholar search of the same has several reviews(taking actual research papers and combining their data to form a hypothesis) one of the papers in the American academy of pediatrics review concluded the overall incidence of head injuries was no higher in football than baseball or boys soccer, and less than girls soccer, other papers concluded the opposite. Also several equipment studies.

The research will come, but it's a massive undertaking to study a newly discovered disease like CTE in an unbiased and scientific way in such a short period of time, especially since right now it requires someone to donate their brain after death.

That's why there is a lot of research into blood tests and bio markers. Identify a way to directly correlate brain injury with a blood marker and you have an opportunity to study the disease without taking brains. Then you can add general population controls, cofactor data, potential preventative drugs or treatments, etc.

The problem is there are a lot of misinformed journalists looking to score readers and so a well written article can take a scientific paper, cherry pick data, editorialize conclusions based upon a predetermined viewpoint and you have mom and dad freaking out about incomplete data and scary headlines.
All I'm saying is this is not a finished story right now, and it's up to parents to decide what is best for their kids in any life decision, but the science is not complete.

Edit :both those articles involve old NFL players.

 

[Ole]

I read that neurology abstract further and the responses from other scientists and doctors below it, this isn't a comments section but a opportunity for fellow scientists to critique, add comments etc.
That study was shredded. It didn't have controls included, makes a massive leap in that it correlates football participation at age 12 to long term NFL players, and it was published 3 days before the super bowl. Red flags all around

 

[justthefacts]

I read that neurology abstract further and the responses from other scientists and doctors below it, this isn't a comments section but a opportunity for fellow scientists to critique, add comments etc.
That study was shredded. It didn't have controls included, makes a massive leap in that it correlates football participation at age 12 to long term NFL players, and it was published 3 days before the super bowl. Red flags all around

Those concerns are responded to here: http://www.researchgate.net/profile...FL_players/links/561fb01708aed8dd194026fc.pdf

 

[Costa Rican Gopher]

Football was a BIG part of my youth, and high school days. Some of my favorite memories are on the football field....but I'm torn on letting my son play. I feel as if I'm going to make a big mistake either way if I let him play or don't let him play. Not letting him play, at least I won't have as bad of regret than if I do let him play and it has a lasting effect on his brain.

http://bringmethenews.com/2015/12/0...-link-between-youth-sports-and-brain-disease/

A lasting effect on his brain? Pee-wee football? Really? Dude, relax.