Bob CollinsThough there are plenty of gorgeous days left, the baseball diamonds in the ginormous sports complex in my town are empty; the kids and their parents have moved on to either soccer or football.
It doesn’t appear that anything has stopped football from being the sport of choice for these younger kids and their parents, so it’s unlikely today’s study from Boston will change anything. Nonetheless, your kids brains are getting scrambled by tackle football.
Have a good game.
The New York Times reports the latest study from Boston University studied 214 people who now average 51 years old. Forty-three played through high school, 103 through college, and 68 made it to the NFL.
It found that those who started playing football when younger than 12 had twice the “risk of problems with behavioral regulation, apathy and executive function” and three times the risk of clinical depression.
Robert Stern’s latest study is consistent with his earlier work which focuses only on NFL players.
“The brain is going through this incredible time of growth between the years of 10 and 12, and if you subject that developing brain to repetitive head impacts, it may cause problems later in life,” Stern told the Times.
Although tackle football participation by children aged 6 to 12 has fallen 20 percent since 2009, it increased a bit in 2015.
