This week's best of MomsTeam.com, a website devoted to health and safety issues in youth sports:
- Anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) injuries do not disproportionately affect female athletes, occur more often from player-to-player contact and far more frequently in competition than practice than previously believed, according to a new study by researchers at Nationwide Children's Hospital in Columbus, Ohio, and the University of Colorado at Denver. As the high school sport with the greatest number of participants by a wide margin, it was not surprising that the study found that football accounted for the largest number of ACL injuries. What came as a surprise was the sport had the highest competition-related ACL injury rate of the nine sports studied, with boys four times more likely to sustain an ACL injury playing football than the other boys' sports studied.
- Last week in Washington D.C. marked the kickoff of an innovative two-year initiative called PASS (Protecting Athletes and Sports Safety). A joint project of the Satcher Health Leadership Institute at Morehouse School of Medicine and the Department of Global Health at George Washington University School of Public Health and Health Services, the initial PASS conference brought together thought leaders on youth sports safety, clinicians, researchers, educators, sporting goods manufacturers and the media to discuss ways to address and combat the incidence of catastrophic brain injuries among the more than 20 million youth who participate in organized sports annually. MomsTEAM's Brooke de Lench found the panel on the role of the media as a primary tool in concussion prevention the most interesting part about the initiative.
- One might expect a leading strength and conditioning trainer like Mike Boyle to advocate that athletes follow a high carbohydrate-lowfat diet, but, as he explained to four-time Olympic medalist and Women Sports Foundation president Angela Ruggiero in another of MomsTEAM's "teachable moment" videos, his advice to athletes is to eat more high quality protein and vegetables, and less carbs. Like more and more nutritionists, Boyle observes: "This high carb, lowfat thing has only given us a higher incidence of diabetes and hasn't done much else for the country. We're fatter and sicker, so I have to believe it's not working real well."
- As the fallout over the Miami Dolphins locker room controversy continues, Katherine Starr, the founder of the anti-bullying, anti-harassment advocacy group Safe4Athletes, suggested that those who think it is an isolated incident are blind to what is really going on in sport. The sad truth, Starr said, is that there is bullying at every level of sports. Concerned that bullying has become the new normal, she said at every level of sport there need to be policies, procedures and safeguards in place to meet the needs of athletes who complain of abuse, bullying and harassment.
- With cold temperatures and winter weather approaching, it may be hard for many sports parents to believe their child might be becoming dehydrated. Cold weather studies at the University of New Hampshire show increased risk for dehydration because the cold weather actually alters the thirst sensation. Sports nutritionist Suzanne Nelson, Head of Sports Nutrition for Cal Athletics, talked about the telltale signs of dehydration and how to keep kids hydrated, regardless of the sports season.
-- MomsTeam.com and NFL Evolution
