Are concussion numbers affecting the youth?

Most youth football players dont really

focus on getting injured until it actually happens because they are having fun playing the sport.
Parents let their children play football because there are a certain level of injuries with youth
pop-warner football than middle school and high school. All are concerned about their child but
want the best for them.
An estimated 5 million athletes participate in organized football in the United States annually.
Children, age 613 years, account for around 3.5 million of these participants, compared to just
2000 in the National Football League (NFL), 100,000 in college, and 1.3 million in high school.
Despite making up 70% of the football playing population, just one study has investigated head
impact exposure experienced by youth football players under 14 years old. The objective of this
study was to quantify the head impact exposure of youth football players, aged 912 years, for
all practices and games over the course of single season. These data, along with future research,
may be used in the development of scientifically based strategies for head injury mitigation.
On-field head impact data were collected from 50 players, age 912 years, on three youth tackle
football teams instrumented with the HIT system for a single fall football season. The three
teams consisted of a juniors team (team A, 911 years old), a pee wee team (team B, 1012 years
old), and a junior pee wee team (team C, 911 years old). Players were monitored during each of
the team games and contact practices. Approval for this study was given by the Virginia Tech
and Wake Forest University Institutional Review Boards (IRBs). Each player provided assent
and their parent/guardian gave written consent for participation in the study.(By Brian R. Cobb)
This is explaining that there are safety in all ages dealing with football and they make sure that
they keep up with the stats and keeping the youth safe. Mothers and fathers talk to their sons
about being aware of their surroundings while on the field, practice and even games because a

concussion is very serious. Its very hard to even think about your child being disabled or even
worse, dead because of various concussions. But our culture works against taking a player out
of a game, let alone excusing him from practice for a couple of weeks. Young athletes are
supposed to be tough. Coaches and parents expect them to keep playing, in spite of injury. I hear
too many youth football coaches say, He just took a ding, when the fact is the player was hit
hard enough for a brain injury. He needs rest, not playing time. Young brains are still growing.
Thats why children and teenagers have such an enormous capacity to learn. Their growing
brains also make them more vulnerable to injury. Children and teens are more likely to get a
concussion than an adult. And the younger they are, the longer it takes for them to recover(By
Brian R. Cobb). Making sports safe for youth athletes isn't easy. Public discourse often focuses
on professional football players. That in itself is an important area for improvement in
concussion prevention. Indeed, consider that fewer than 2,000 professional football players are
rostered at any given time during the regular season. Now compare that to the more than 26
million kids ages 6 to 17 who played youth sports in 2014, and the scope of people who stand to
be helped by innovations in concussion-related technology becomes more clear(By Julie
Kliegman).