Requiring a child to play football should be actual child abuse, and even allowing it should be frowned upon the way that letting a child play with a blowtorch is.
The fact that they're a repeated part of the game and not occasional incidents is very, very bad.
I've gotten a concussion falling off an electric scooter. But slamming my head on the pavement isn't the point of riding an electric scooter, and if you're doing it regularly, you're doing something wrong. Unlike contact football.
But if it is significantly worse than other sports, why not single it out as the worst thing ever?
Several sports increase the risk of CTE, but football has been more studied, I think because the incidence of obviously impared former players is higher than in other sports.
Rugby and ice hockey are certainly bad, but at least the impacts are generally limited to play near the ball/puck, whereas with American football, essentially every player has an impact on every play (WR blocking on rush plays, etc).
Correct. NFL payers are better paid, get better medical care, have better training and equipment, and their brains are more developed.
At that size ratio from kids to pro, they should be rivaling Dark Helmet from Space Balls.
It's well established that the effects of repeated head trauma are cumulative, with progressively longer healing periods, worse symptoms, etc. And that sub-concussive impacts also accumulate along with the concussive impacts.
From the article: The bulk of the head impacts that these former NFL players experienced didn’t occur at the NFL level. They occurred at the collegiate level ... and at the high school level and in many cases the youth level. And all of those cumulative hits to the head added up to result in an increased risk,” said Daneshvar.
also there are studies on this
McKee et al. (2023) – Neuropathologic and Clinical Findings in Young Contact Sport Athletes Exposed to Repetitive Head Impacts (JAMA Neurology) [https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamaneurology/fullarticle/2...]
Alosco et al. (2017) – Age of First Exposure to Tackle Football and Later-Life Cognitive Impairment and Neuropsychiatric Symptoms (Translational Psychiatry) [https://doi.org/10.1038/tp.2017.197]
even intl football headers have concerns
Provide your data Mr. Thrwaway, if that even is your real name.