4 ms·

I'm more interested in what happens to the brain with youth soccer. Bigger problem than a couple hundred pro athletes.

awinder 9y ago
This article may be about nfl players but concussions in youth football is also a huge problem. It’s been linked to declines in learning aptitude, among other things, so as you start expanding this issue to a problem of diminished quality of life you get an even crazier picture.
bhouston 9y ago
I agree. Heading soccer balls is proven to at least temporarily reduce IQ. I've never let my kids play that sport. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/to-your-health/wp/2016/10/25/heading-a-soccer-ball-causes-instant-brain-changes-study-finds/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/to-your-health/wp/2016/1... http://www.cnn.com/2017/02/01/health/soccer-headers-concussion-study/index.html http://www.cnn.com/2017/02/01/health/soccer-headers-concussi...
- nugget 9y ago
  So what are the safer competitive team sports for kids to participate in?
  - logfromblammo 9y ago
    Ironically, thanks to the potentially lethal weaponry used as equipment, archery and target shooting. Swimming is also relatively safe. Distance running might result in repetitive stress injury, but it won't kill you. Slow-pitch softball eliminates most of the risks from baseball. Hit by pitch and RSI from pitching are the dangers there. Cycling removes some of the RSI risk from distance running, but replaces it with higher-speed impacts, usually into hard surfaces. Edit: It depends on your definition of "team sport", really. If you define it such that you can't meaningfully separate out any individual performances, you're cutting out all relay-type competitions from the start. If you say archery is not a team sport, then neither is a swimming relay race. Where do you draw the line? What's the minimum number of participants that have to work together to qualify as a team?
    - ouid 9y ago
      not really team sports though.
  - ouid 9y ago
    I don't think basketball comes with a lot of TBI, and baseball is pretty safe if you don't get hit in the head by pitches. That's 2 out of big 3 in America.
  - MaxLeiter 9y ago
    Baseball is definitely up there; catching and pitching can be a lot of strain on knees/shoulders but for the most part it's safe long term.
  - sushid 9y ago
    Really? There's a bunch of non-contact or limited-contact sports. Crew, tennis, baseball, swimming, golf, all of track and field, etc.
  - bjl 9y ago
    Basketball.
  - kenjackson 9y ago
    One of the safest sports I've seen is oddly flag football. Especially for youth. There's typically no blocking allowed at the youth level, and obviously no tackling. Of the youth sports I'm involved with flag football and baseball are the two safest (especially if you're not a pitcher). Then basketball sits in the middle as pretty safe. The main worry in basketball is running into someone going for the ball. I'd put soccer and tackle football as the most dangerous (tackle football being more dangerous). If they eliminate heading out of youth soccer, it would move it into the basketball level of safety. I'm not sure there is any way to change tackle football to make it reasonably safe for kids.
  - abecedarius 9y ago
    Volleyball is fun and challenging when played well. I'm not sure how easy it generally is to find good competition to learn from -- southern California where I grew up was a good place for it.
- lsmarigo 9y ago
  Bit extreme of a reaction to two severely flawed click-bait studies and relevant to that "fear as a product" article from yesterday. Washington Post: 14 men participating in the study. Each was asked to perform a rotational header — redirecting the soccer ball — 20 consecutive times during 10-minute sessions. tiny sample size + 20 consecutive headers in 10 minutes is astronomically rare occurrence in soccer, 3 headers in 10 minutes is incredibly rare. Even with this methodology they report *the alterations appeared to clear within 24 hours. CNN: "Concussions in soccer mostly occur from player-to-player and player-to-ground contact. Heading is involved in only 15% to 25% of concussions in soccer, and most of those are a result of poorly executed headers where two players hit heads," So most concussions are from bumping heads, which is a possibility in any contact sport.
  - jonbarker 9y ago
    I don't really think of avoiding head injuries as being an example of reacting to "fear as a product". The fact is we know so little about what constitutes brain injury that we might as well err on the side of caution even if it seems a little extreme. There's a term for this "the precautionary principle": http://www.precautionaryprinciple.eu/ http://www.precautionaryprinciple.eu/
  - curun1r 9y ago
    > 20 consecutive headers in 10 minutes is astronomically rare occurrence in soccer For what it's worth, this is a completely reasonable number. In a game situation, sure, headers aren't that common. But during my youth soccer days, we practiced at least twice as often as we played and practice with headers was quite common. Ironically, they were trying to teach us the proper technique so that we wouldn't hurt ourselves. I can easily imagine practice sessions in which we headed the ball at least 3 times as often as that 20 per 10 min number.
- bisRepetita 9y ago
  Do you let your kids play football? Honest question, bc at the end of the day, beyond all scientific studies, it is parents who will define which sports are popular and actually played.
  - bhouston 9y ago
    Football is also no. Also probably no to rugby and contact hockey. I would prefer to avoid all sports that involve a lot of knocks to the head. They are just sports, it isn't worth it.
- mynewtb 9y ago
  Kids playing casual soccer almost never use their heads. Let them have fun.
- jonbarker 9y ago
  Daniel Amen recommends against soccer for kids for the reason of heading the ball. The brain in its live state is something more like very soft jello than the rubbery thing we see in science class. Do we really want to be shaking a jellylike thing around at all? Probably not.
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
kendallpark 9y ago
Honestly I think the most important thing is to help a kid find a sport they love that will motivate them to stay active. My concern about TBI in kids heading soccer balls is far less than childhood obesity and inactivity. We can push kids toward "safe" sports with minimal risks, but that doesn't guarantee they will enjoy it. A kid that grows up playing contact sports is still going to have better health on average than the sedentary kid.
abecedarius 9y ago
I wonder, is there headgear that would fix that? I gave up youth soccer after a season or two at least partly because heading hurts.

This article may be about nfl players but concussions in youth football is also a huge problem. It’s been linked to declines in learning aptitude, among other things, so as you start expanding this issue to a problem of diminished quality of life you get an even crazier picture.

bhouston 9y ago

I agree. Heading soccer balls is proven to at least temporarily reduce IQ. I've never let my kids play that sport. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/to-your-health/wp/2016/10/25/heading-a-soccer-ball-causes-instant-brain-changes-study-finds/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/to-your-health/wp/2016/1... http://www.cnn.com/2017/02/01/health/soccer-headers-concussion-study/index.html http://www.cnn.com/2017/02/01/health/soccer-headers-concussi...

nugget 9y ago
So what are the safer competitive team sports for kids to participate in?
- logfromblammo 9y ago
  Ironically, thanks to the potentially lethal weaponry used as equipment, archery and target shooting. Swimming is also relatively safe. Distance running might result in repetitive stress injury, but it won't kill you. Slow-pitch softball eliminates most of the risks from baseball. Hit by pitch and RSI from pitching are the dangers there. Cycling removes some of the RSI risk from distance running, but replaces it with higher-speed impacts, usually into hard surfaces. Edit: It depends on your definition of "team sport", really. If you define it such that you can't meaningfully separate out any individual performances, you're cutting out all relay-type competitions from the start. If you say archery is not a team sport, then neither is a swimming relay race. Where do you draw the line? What's the minimum number of participants that have to work together to qualify as a team?
  - ouid 9y ago
    not really team sports though.
- ouid 9y ago
  I don't think basketball comes with a lot of TBI, and baseball is pretty safe if you don't get hit in the head by pitches. That's 2 out of big 3 in America.
- MaxLeiter 9y ago
  Baseball is definitely up there; catching and pitching can be a lot of strain on knees/shoulders but for the most part it's safe long term.
- sushid 9y ago
  Really? There's a bunch of non-contact or limited-contact sports. Crew, tennis, baseball, swimming, golf, all of track and field, etc.
- bjl 9y ago
  Basketball.
- kenjackson 9y ago
  One of the safest sports I've seen is oddly flag football. Especially for youth. There's typically no blocking allowed at the youth level, and obviously no tackling. Of the youth sports I'm involved with flag football and baseball are the two safest (especially if you're not a pitcher). Then basketball sits in the middle as pretty safe. The main worry in basketball is running into someone going for the ball. I'd put soccer and tackle football as the most dangerous (tackle football being more dangerous). If they eliminate heading out of youth soccer, it would move it into the basketball level of safety. I'm not sure there is any way to change tackle football to make it reasonably safe for kids.
- abecedarius 9y ago
  Volleyball is fun and challenging when played well. I'm not sure how easy it generally is to find good competition to learn from -- southern California where I grew up was a good place for it.
lsmarigo 9y ago
Bit extreme of a reaction to two severely flawed click-bait studies and relevant to that "fear as a product" article from yesterday. Washington Post: 14 men participating in the study. Each was asked to perform a rotational header — redirecting the soccer ball — 20 consecutive times during 10-minute sessions. tiny sample size + 20 consecutive headers in 10 minutes is astronomically rare occurrence in soccer, 3 headers in 10 minutes is incredibly rare. Even with this methodology they report *the alterations appeared to clear within 24 hours. CNN: "Concussions in soccer mostly occur from player-to-player and player-to-ground contact. Heading is involved in only 15% to 25% of concussions in soccer, and most of those are a result of poorly executed headers where two players hit heads," So most concussions are from bumping heads, which is a possibility in any contact sport.
- jonbarker 9y ago
  I don't really think of avoiding head injuries as being an example of reacting to "fear as a product". The fact is we know so little about what constitutes brain injury that we might as well err on the side of caution even if it seems a little extreme. There's a term for this "the precautionary principle": http://www.precautionaryprinciple.eu/ http://www.precautionaryprinciple.eu/
- curun1r 9y ago
  > 20 consecutive headers in 10 minutes is astronomically rare occurrence in soccer For what it's worth, this is a completely reasonable number. In a game situation, sure, headers aren't that common. But during my youth soccer days, we practiced at least twice as often as we played and practice with headers was quite common. Ironically, they were trying to teach us the proper technique so that we wouldn't hurt ourselves. I can easily imagine practice sessions in which we headed the ball at least 3 times as often as that 20 per 10 min number.
bisRepetita 9y ago
Do you let your kids play football? Honest question, bc at the end of the day, beyond all scientific studies, it is parents who will define which sports are popular and actually played.
- bhouston 9y ago
  Football is also no. Also probably no to rugby and contact hockey. I would prefer to avoid all sports that involve a lot of knocks to the head. They are just sports, it isn't worth it.
mynewtb 9y ago
Kids playing casual soccer almost never use their heads. Let them have fun.
jonbarker 9y ago
Daniel Amen recommends against soccer for kids for the reason of heading the ball. The brain in its live state is something more like very soft jello than the rubbery thing we see in science class. Do we really want to be shaking a jellylike thing around at all? Probably not.

deleted 9y ago

[deleted]

kendallpark 9y ago

Honestly I think the most important thing is to help a kid find a sport they love that will motivate them to stay active. My concern about TBI in kids heading soccer balls is far less than childhood obesity and inactivity. We can push kids toward "safe" sports with minimal risks, but that doesn't guarantee they will enjoy it. A kid that grows up playing contact sports is still going to have better health on average than the sedentary kid.

abecedarius 9y ago

I wonder, is there headgear that would fix that? I gave up youth soccer after a season or two at least partly because heading hurts.