Parents Of Youth Football Players Receive Alarming Update On Brain Injuries

This article was originally published on Total Pro Sports.

Parents with kids involved in youth football have been addressed in a worrying update on brain injuries. 

Steven Wolf, MD, of Boston Children’s Health Physicians in Hawthorne, New York, and a member of the American Academy of Neurology, recently conducted a study. 

It notes that close to one in five brain injuries children sustain are directly related to football. 

You can find the full study here.

“Youth sports and activities included in the study, in addition to football, were soccer, basketball, cycling, skiing, snowboarding, running, baseball, hiking, roller skating, skateboarding, wrestling, cheerleading, ice hockey, lacrosse, field hockey and volleyball,” it reads.

Football accounted for 19 percent of children’s brain injuries. Soccer was second, at 11 percent, while basketball accounted for 10 percent. 

Youth Football Highlighted As “Critical Public Health Priority”

The above suggests that young football players are almost twice as likely to suffer a brain injury as someone participating in another sport. 

“Traumatic brain injuries from sports are a common, yet preventable, source of long-term neurological and psychiatric issues in children and young adults,” Dr. Wolf says. “Our study found that nearly one in five of these injuries occurred in youth football, with these athletes also experiencing more repeat brain injuries than youth in other sports.”

“Our findings highlight youth football as a critical public health priority, suggesting that brain injuries sustained during key stages of development may reshape health later,” he adds. “Prioritizing safety standards like delaying tackle football participation and finding ways to limit repeat injuries could help better protect developing brains.”

Repetitive traumatic brain injuries are also said to be more common in football.

The research determined “that repeat TBIs were common, occurring in 37% of football injuries compared to 32% across all sports.”

Of course, youth football is not going away. But there are claims of parents giving extra thought to allowing their kids to play.

Others have recommended flag football up until high school.