Reducing Injury Risk in Youth Sports
- 2018-05-25
- The New York Times
Few parents enroll their children in organized sports with the expectation that they will get injured. Yet children often do get hurt, and sometimes those injuries can sideline young athletes for months or an entire season and may sour them on participating in the future. The effects of sports injuries may even linger into adulthood.
Children have a larger surface area and bigger heads relative to their body size; their growing cartilage is more susceptible to stresses; and most lack “the complex motor skills needed for certain sports until after puberty.”
Thus, the goal should be to take whatever measures one can to avoid athletic injuries — or at least minimize their severity — and keep kids in the game.