Argumentative Essay: Are Youth Sports Too Serious?

Are you questioning if you really want your child to play football, but you don’t know if the sport is too dangerous for them? This hurts me because I’ve been playing the sport my whole life and I love the sport but the truth is that it is dangerous too play. The sport is just not all negative because of the injuries there are some approve things for the parent or guardian of that child. The injury percent do from football is significant.

Participation in high school sports helps promote a physically active lifestyle. High school sports participation has grown from an estimated 4 million participants during the 1971--72 school year to an estimated 7.2 million in 2005--06 (1). However, despite the documented health benefits of increased physical activity (e.g., weight management, improved self-esteem, and increased strength, endurance, and flexibility) (2,3), those who participate in athletics are at risk for sports-related injuries (4,5). High school athletes account for an estimated 2 million injuries, 500,000 doctor visits, and 30,000 hospitalizations annually (6). To date, the study of these injuries has been limited by inabilities to calculate injury rates, compare results

A major reason is that sports keep kids healthy. R. Dawn Comstock, an investigator at the Center for Injury Research and Policy stated “We have an epidemic of obesity in this country, and sports is one of the ways for kids to incorporate exercise in their lives” (qtd. in Perkel 2) . Most kids don’t get active anymore.

With more and more young people playing football, the risk of players becoming disabled is becoming greater and greater. Depression, behavior that is erratic, headaches, and Alzheimer's disease (which does lead to death) are just some of the long-term effects of football. As a result, children should not play football due to its deadly effects. Another reason is you are probably thinking, "My child is safe; they always have a helmet on when playing football." Guess again, because no particular type of helmet

The story by Jeffrey Perkel says, “Not unexpectedly, college players were about twice as likely to injure themselves as high school students, Comstock said, suffering 8.6 injuries per 1,000 athlete- exposures (a practice or competition), compared with high school athletes 4.36 injuries/ 1,000.” This is saying that college students are more likely to get injured then high school athletes, this quote would also support that kids are going to the emergency room very often at young ages. This article also states, “But the researcher said she was surprised to find that the distribution of injuries differed, with fractures, concussions, and season-ending injuries more common among high school athletes.” This researcher was surprised that she found that so many kids were getting injured, especially that the ones with more were college students. Most people would think in college they would make sure you wear enough protection and keep you more

Tackling in Youth Football Should be Banned Imagine a nine year old boy who loves laughing. He is energetic, and it seems like he is always doing something. He is getting ready for the big football game later one afternoon. He has been waiting for this day for two weeks; it is finally here.

Therefore, one may argue that parents shouldn’t let their kids play football for fear of injuries and concussions occurring on the field. Quite oppositely, kids should definitely be allowed to engage in playing football which will make sure kids stay in shape and do better in school. To begin with, playing football allows kids to stay fit as fiddle. Football is a highly demanding sport that involves lots of running, jumping and tackling which can help kids stay in shape. Shockingly, “In 2012, more than one third of children and adolescents were overweight or obese.”

Health and contact sports are something parents worry about as over 500 deaths in the past 3 years from contact sports alone are making parents stand out against these sports and if the government doesn 't do anything about it the number of 7% overall contact sports drop will just keep getting lower and lower each time. Dr. William Speight also had this to say “Many other kids have suffered paralyzing spinal injuries”(Pennington). Kids being paralyzed is the fear for many athletes these days and the number f kids getting paralyzed has increases 2% which is equivalent to about 8,000 kids each year which is crazy to think about kids can 't play sports for the rest of thrie and maybe not be able to live their life because of it so next you hear mom or dad i wanna play sports your answer should be a simple NO. Kids under 10 need to stop playing contact sports because 45% of kids under 10 getting hurt are from contact sports and 5% of the time its ending that kids chances to play sports in the feature, Not to mention contact sports can also make kids go to their fullest and being burned out and although contact provide some kids will useful tools in life most of the time there is more negative than positive. Health, Age, Contact, parents, are some of the many reasons contact sports can be very dangerous for the youth.

Dr. Frank L. Smoll states, “All children and youth need vigorous physical activity as part of their daily lives, and sports provide the benefits of exercise and the potential for acquiring a sense of accomplishment.” (Smoll 1/2).

2.6 million sports related emergency room visits a year; 25,376 children under 19 sent to the emergency room for traumatic brain injury each year (Merkel). Contact sports, a sport in which the participants necessarily come into bodily contact with one another, like football have become more popular among children and they have started to play the sport at earlier ages as well. Although physical activity is beneficial in many ways, contact sports creates many health risks: concussions, chronic traumatic encephalopathy, brain damage, broken bones, and broken growth plates. Because of all of these risks, contact sports should be banned for people under 18. To begin, contact sports should be banned for children under 18 because of the risk of

The first negative reason to why sports are bad for kids are concussions. Researchers have found out that concussions have tripled in the last decade. They also found that kids fourteen to nineteen years old have gone to the emergency room because of concussions. Parents spend lots of money for their kids to play a sport but it is a risk for getting injured, they can spend 30,000 dollars in six months.

Children being vulnerable to harmful situations, such as the ones listed above, is one of the main reasons that the total number of children participating in competitive sports has been diminishing over the last few

“In the U.S., about 30 million children and teens participate in some form of organized sports, and more than 3.5 million injuries each year” claims Stanford Children’s Health. It’s definitely true that competitive sports can cause all sorts of injuries from big to small. The media teaches people simply that sports leads to horrific injuries and can cause stress, but what the mainstream media hardly discusses are the great benefits of competitive sports. While there may be some negatives to competitive sports, that’s just life, and to add on to that; there are plenty of benefits which are sure to override to media’s facts. Kids should play competitive sports because competitive sports teach children powerful life lessons, contributes to their social and mental stability, and because of the physical gain competitive sports provides.

In recent years studies have found that some kids have been steering away from sports. Numbers in kids playing sports has gone down nearly 4 percent from 2009, according to a widely cited survey by the Sports and Fitness Industry Association. Total sports played have plummeted by nearly 10 percent. People were curious why this was happening, so studies were conducted to find out. The researchers found out that there have been added pressures by three main sources, parents, coaches, and self pressure.

Over 517,726 football related injuries occurred in 2005-2006 across high schools in the United States", claimed by source 2. However, sports injuries are rare and typically do not put the athlete sports put athletes in harm's way. Source 2 claims that, many schools in the nation have a highly advanced training staff and coaches or at least trying to replicate how the NCAA handles equipment and injuries. With proper training and coaching, athletes lower their chances of getting injured in sports. Overall then, despite the possible injuries, the benefits of sports simply outweigh the potential