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If we really want to determine how dangerous or unhealthy football is, we should consider the full picture. As part of this thought exercise, let's take as a g
by aezell 9y ago
If we really want to determine how dangerous or unhealthy football is, we should consider the full picture.
As part of this thought exercise, let's take as a given that CTE doesn't exist and brain injuries are unimportant.
After that, let's look at the prevalence of diabetes, heart disease, and other long-term degenerative diseases in the NFL player population.
Then, let's look at the shortened earning potential of the NFL player. Yes, for a year, maybe more, they are highly paid but lifetime earnings might not be what you'd expect. How do the stresses of many men who leave the NFL with no skills and often an abandoned college degree affect them and their families?
Next, let's consider the lifestyle the NFL envisions for its fans. Spending at least a full day each week sitting and eating unhealthy food while consuming alcohol. Spend the rest of the week gambling on the outcomes of the games (or individual players). Much of the time, this fandom is done as a family leading to impacts on children in the home. There's a societal health impact here.
The list goes on if we follow this thinking. So, if we go back and remove our given, we end up with a spectacle that unduly endangers its participants, encourages unhealthy behavior in its fans, and indoctrinates our youth to be accepting of all the above. Meanwhile, a very few wealthy families get even wealthier on the backs of all that.
- 2bitencryption 9y agoI agree with your early points, but I don't think we need to take the typical Hacker News stance of "everything is killing everybody and people need to start behaving more like me and less like themselves." > Next, let's consider the lifestyle the NFL envisions for its fans. Spending at least a full day each week sitting and eating unhealthy food while consuming alcohol. Spend the rest of the week gambling on the outcomes of the games (or individual players). Much of the time, this fandom is done as a family leading to impacts on children in the home. There's a societal health impact here. Won't somebody please think of the children! They might grow up to watch FOOTBALL!!
- aezell 9y agoThat wasn't my stance. My stance was one of examining the full societal cost of any activity. Football is certainly not alone in the impacts it has on families. It's just the one we are talking about in this forum. But, if one is seriously trying to determine sociological trends, these are the kinds of questions one must examine. It might be a similar line of thought, with different details, for the increased use of digital devices in our society. Lastly, you're being facetious but their watching football might well be part of the problem. Without participants or an audience, the NFL ceases to exist thereby removing the negatives AND positives that its existence might create.