Kids and Sports- A terrible thing happened

[loyalsister]

A friend told me that her third grade son just lost one of his friends- because of extreme dieting practices.
The boy was a football player and had to keep himself below a certain weight. He was having trouble with it and was doing some extreme dieting. He very suddenly passed out and died the other day.
My friend expressed concern over the possibility of the parents being held responsible and how it would effect their football league. I was a little amazed that a person wouldn't instantly start wondering "what are we doing with these kids? Maybe there should be some changes."
I also kind of think that a 10 year old isn't old enough to be able to consider the potential risks of those kinds of diets. Parents, on the other hand are and should be smart enough to encourage their child to discover different activities if the choice is a health risk or embarrassment.
I know it's a horrible thing for them to be going through, but I wouldn't consider it entirely unreasonable for them to be held responsible on some level.
Anyone else have thoughts?

[7th_Sephiroth]

1. football oughta be outlawed inschool

it causes nothing but trouble

[sasquatch]

6. knee meet jerk

[7th_Sephiroth]

15. that a physical threat?

not suprising from a guy called sasquatch, let me guess, you grew up thinking that it was ok to give members of the football team automatic c's or passes on tests because they were at football practice

[sasquatch]

25. Jesus, is American English your second language

Knee meet Jerk is a different way of saying kneejerk and if you don't know what that means...well nevermind. I'm a former football player and fan yet I disagree with teachers giving players a pass. When the players get a pass on their classroom work they begin to lose dicipline and when a player loses dicipline he's of no good to the team.

[7th_Sephiroth]

26. is the team all that matters

how about the fact that his grades are slipping and he's dumb as a post, but is made famous and given a passing grade because of football (or other reasons) you just get another GWB

[sasquatch]

28. There's no way I can reason with you

Look you live (or lived) in Florida. It isn't really the traditional south yet it is a absolute shithole. Florida is filled with bountyhunters and the people they should be hunting. I mean look around, people decide to live in a hurricane zone in a trailer home. What you need is to move to a sane state above the Mason-Dixon line my friend.

[7th_Sephiroth]

29. i agree with you on that

if i can get the money together, i have had my eye on an area in michigan for a summer home, and a place in new mexico for a summer home

[sasquatch]

31. I hope for your sake you do get the money

It will add years to your life when you move.

[7th_Sephiroth]

34. yeah

hopefully i can afford it in 5 years

[RummyTheDummy]

10. That's a bunch of bullshit

I've seen dozens of situations (through my job) where kids found a niche in sports and it turned into an avenue for their advancement. These are hardcore, hoodlum kids well on their way to life in and out of jail who righted their ship because they found something that interested them.

I'm sorry you were a geek in high school (I was too) but to blame everything on sports is ridiculous. These parents are the problem, not sports.

Careful not to paint with a broad brush.

[7th_Sephiroth]

13. i wasent a geek per se

but i had a bad experience with the football team that left me with a knife in my arm and expelled for bleeding on the football team captains's jacket and following through with the attempted murder case that sprung from it all those freaks care about is football, and because i was jeopardizing thier teams chance of winning, i was punished severely

[HEyHEY]

14. Okay we need to hear more of the story than that

WHA!!>>

[7th_Sephiroth]

16. i havee told it on here before

i went out with the captain of the football team's "girl" he and some friends came up to me in the school parking lot yelling at me (i had 4 inches in height on both of them and i am a verry skilled martal artist) i try to get around them and they push me up into the hood of my car and hit me i start hitting back and the captain pulls a knife slashes my face and stabs me in the shoulder, i break his arm, get in my car and call the police, they are lieing in agony infront of my car and are taken to the hospital and arrested, and the next week i'm called into the principal's office and asked not to testify in the attempted murder trial the captain was in fro slashing my face and stabbing me (it would have been my heart that was stabbed if i hadent shifted in caught it in the shoulder/arm area) i told them in a polite way to go f themselves, s othey expell me for fighting (tho they had it on camera that they started it and hit first)

[HEyHEY]

18. Was the guy found guilty?

[7th_Sephiroth]

19. yes

the school "lost" that security tape, but it turned up a week later in the principal's desk after an anonamyous (heh) drug tip

[Rabrrrrrr]

20. My God, what a bunch of worms!

The principal asking you not to testify - what a fucking crock.

Bet he's a "personal responsibility, tough on crime" republican, too.

I'm glad you gave the team captain the comeuppance he deserved.

I don't mind the sports so much, nor even the athletes in general, but I DESPISE what our culture of sports worship does to the athletes.

"Just pass him in chemistry, Mr. Roper, cuz he's got to play the homecoming game!"

"You can't put my boy in detention for beating that other kid up - he's our top player!"

Fuck that. Sports worship. Makes me sick.

[7th_Sephiroth]

21. he has a picture

oif himself shaking hands with jeb on his desk *this is florida were talking about*

[Rabrrrrrr]

23. the prinicpal does?

Shouldn't even be allowed to be in education if he's that much of a far right fuck.

[7th_Sephiroth]

24. yeah really

but, alas the RW runs things here and they see football as more important thant creating Intai-lectuals

[REP]

2. They Murdered Their Kid

They'll get off, though, because they did in the holy name of sports and have suffered enough because their future cash cow died.

[loyalsister]

5. Sadly, I think you're right

"Good intentions, etc." Forget that the possibility for something to go horribly wrong was foreseeable.
I do think it's possible that they'll lose custody of the foster kids they have taken in. One can hope.

[ikojo]

3. My sister has a niece by marriage whose husband has

put their girl on a diet. My sister's in laws HATE LOATH AND DESPISE fat people. This little girl is seven or eight now and has been on some sort of diet (even though she is not big) since she was five. At one time she was on the Atkins program. At one Thanksgiving dinner she had to ask her dad what was OK for her to eat and then he monitored every bite that went into her mouth.

Nightly she is required to do treadmill work.

I say they are creating a future anorexic or someone extremely obsessed with food.

It is not unusual for American girls to be on some sort of diet at younger and younger ages, it is only now finally being seen among American boys as boys are now expected to be perfect physically.

[loyalsister]

4. It's horrible!!

I think people would have been immediately more outraged about this situation if it had been a girl track runner who had died of anorexia.
I had no idea that this was affecting boys. What a terrible thing to do to a child!
I recently listened to a conversation about a relative who some aunts said needed to lose weight because of societal pressure.
This young woman is not obese. She's just maybe a little heavier than average. This death almost has me ready to go on a letter writing campaign or something. This pressure on kids needs to stop. Healthy nutrition in the name of good health is one thing. Dieting for the sake of appearance or to qualify for sports is another.

[ikojo]

11. It's not AS prevalent among males but anorexia

is on the rise among boys and men. I read somewhere that there has been a marked increase among men since the rise of the "lad rags" such as Maxim and Details. Men are now expected to have a perfect physique.

http://www.anred.com/males.html

How many males have eating disorders?

The numbers seem to be increasing. Twenty years ago it was thought that for every 10-15 women with anorexia or bulimia, there was one man. Today researchers find that for every four females with anorexia, there is one male, and for every 8-11 females with bulimia, there is one male. (American Journal of Psychiatry 2001. 158-570)

[name not needed]

35. That's child abuse

Putting a five year old on a diet? That is fucking insane.

[onebigbadwulf]

7. What kind of diet was it?

We need specifics. It might not have been because of the diet either.

Those kids are often worked to exhaustion or concussion.

[loyalsister]

8. It went beyond dieting

There was a diet, steam rooms, and an intense exercise regimine. Sort of out of some wrestlers' informal handbook.
He was in a hurry to lose the weight, because he wasn't going to be able to play otherwise.
There is no doubt that the weight reduction plan caused the stress that led to his death.
They are hoping to find an unknown medical condition because they believe that will be a mitigating factor that will allow them to avoid charges.
My problem with it is that this kid was not old enough to make this kind of major health decision. I have a hard time believing that two reasonably intelligent people never considered the possibility that there could be some kind of negative health effects from this. It was up to them to make the decision- not him.

[WindRavenX]

9. remember that time when we played sports for fun...?

I hate it when everything needs to be perfected.
I played softball/soccer with Kidsports...I wasn't a great athlete, but I loved playing it.
Sigh.

[ikojo]

12. Sports are often not seen as being done for fun now because

too many parents are trying to relive their childhood through their kids. Also, with the rised of child sports phenoms such as the Williams Sisters and Tiger Woods I am sure there is a fair number of parents who would not be all that upset if their kid became the nexe phenom and they could gravy train off their kid.

[seaglass]

45. They are still fun but to compete at the HS level it requires

more and more work. No longer can a kid who played farm league baseball make the HS baseball team because the kid competing for that spot on the HS team is playing AAU ball and training/practicing year round. It's a catch-22.

[loyalsister]

44. Informal games were the best!

Now that I think about it, this development of male anorexia seems inevitable when you consider the demand for perfection in youth athletics.

[skygazer]

17. Wow

I didn't realize they were putting that kind of pressure on kids that young.

I know a lot of people love sports programs because of all the supposed good things sports teach kids. The problem is, more and more often the kids aren't learning the lessons that people think they are. Sportsmanship, teamwork, cooperation, hard work... The adults in their lives are very often living out their sports fantasies through their kids and the kids are pressured to acheive too much too early.

There is a "winning is the only thing" mentality out there when it used to be that "it isn't whether you win or lose, it's how you play the game". Now it's most definitely whether you win or lose.

This is why I prefer music programs which actually DO teach hard work, cooperation, discipline, teamwork. I know, I know, a lot of kids would rather play games. But how much fun are they really having?

[Lydia Leftcoast]

47. Exactly--all we hear is sports, sports, sports as the cure for

whatever ails America's youth. Is there a ghetto neighborhood with a high crime rate? Well, then they need midnight basketball, right?

Yet the arts can also turn lives around. I bet the members of the Boys' Choir of Harlem and the kids who are being trained by the Alvin Ailey Dance Company have a lower average crime rate and a higher ultimate educational achievemnt than most of the midnight basketball players.

Music, theater, dance--all the performing arts teach hard work, cooperation, discipline, and teamwork. Even the more individual activities, such as visual art and writing, provide emotional outlets for troubled kids.

[Nikia]

22. It is bad enough when it happens to young adults

Ten years old? That is horrible. The child would have no idea of the risks that he was taking by being on the diet. Parents need to watch out for that sort of thing if coaches are going to be pressuring them. What sort of coach would do that to such a young kid though?
In our college athletic conference, we had a few female track athletes from the same team end up hospitalized because they went on an Adkin's like diet consisting of only lean meat and raw low starch veggies and lost more weight than they had to lose. The coach claimed that these women chose their diet and that he had nothing to do with it. Our own coach, who also had coached wrestling, was hard on us if we gained weight. It wasn't that we couldn't run, but he did make lots of offensive and even humiliating comments to us in front of other team members.

[Mr. Blonde]

27. dieting to stay under a certain weight?

I know many a kid who won't wrestle because football coaches want them to get bigger. I would think health problems from a 10 year old taking creatine would be more likely.

[Red State Rebel]

30. Seems odd for Football, Wrestlers always had to do that...

I dated a wrestler in high school and it was awful what they did, starving themselves, jogging wrapped in garbage bags, diuretics - just to weigh into their class.

[Mr. Blonde]

32. I wrestle

happily most of those things are in the past. Sure they are still around , but with the new rules in place it hurts performance rather than enhancing it. While I think it is bad for young children to cut weight, it is part of the sport that gives it its mystique. It is what makes wrestlers different, and as Dan Gable says, "after wrestling everything is easy."

[Philostopher]

49. Same here.

The guy I dated had moved up a weight class right before I started going out with him -- he was 5'6" then, and had been wrestling 105, he was upset about it, but he was going to have to move up to 116.

Let that sink in ... a 16-year-old guy, five feet six inches, wrestling at 105. Yes, he looked like he had a terminal disease in his wrestling pics. He wasn't that emaciated when I dated him -- I was the same height, and we were about the same weight, somewhere around 130, which isn't unusual for a young woman that age but is rather thin for a young man. Probably not unhealthy, though.

He said he'd had to jog wrapped in Saran wrap under his sweats and use laxatives for a week before a weigh-in to qualify for that weight class, but he that he eventually developed too much muscle weight and had to move up a class. I thought -- and, if I recall correctly, told him -- it was pretty damned sad for a 17-year-old guy to be pissed at himself because he had too much muscle weight!

A ten-year-old kid, though, jeez. Ten year olds probably don't know their systems well enough to know when they're pushing it too hard to say, 'hey, I can't keep doing this.' My old boyfriend didn't always know when he was pushing it too hard -- how could a ten-year-old possibly be expected to know?

[sasquatch]

38. In the local Pee-Wee leagues if you way too much you can't be a.....

ball carier. That's probably why the kid was trying to keep his weight down.

[seaglass]

46. I think in Pop Warner that kids are assigned to teams based on

weight, not necessarily age. So a kid that is young but big for his age could be placed on a team with older more experienced kids. This happened to someone I know last week and the boy was going to quit football rather than be placed on a team he was not prepared for.

[alarimer]

33. Why would a child have to lose weight for football?

Or any sport. This doesn't make a lot of sense to me. In any case, it should not have happened. The coaches and parents should care more about the health of the athletes than about how much they wieghed.

The problem isn't football or sports per se; it is the importance we as a society place on them. Some sports like football and basketball are seen as a ticket to fame and fortune so parents can sometimes get overzealous and push thier kids too hard. When I was in high school I heard of special treatment for star athletes, but never actually witnessed it. Sports can be important, they can be fun and certainly heathlier outlets for kids than video games or the computer (in terms of physical fitness) but we go overboard in our adulation of sports figures.

[Fleshdancer]

36. This was my first question too...why did he have to lose weight?

Great post by the way. I hate to say "ditto", but you said everything I was planning on saying.

[loyalsister]

42. The intentions aren't entirely bad....

The idea is to keep them all within about the same size so that they don't hurt each other. These are young kids 2nd and 3rd grade. He was basically outgrowing the team.
If they were to play flag football it wouldn't be an issue. But, to get back to the topic you opened, playing flag football young isn't going to be developing a football star.

[alarimer]

48. still it can't be healthy

For someone that young to diet. Well I don't know what the answer is then. I would hate to see any of them get hurt if one of the players was that much bigger than the others.

[loyalsister]

50. Not only is it not healthy

it looks like the result is neglecting the health of children. I'm fully with you.
I just meant the origin of the policy was based in protecting kids.
It's just gotten so far out of hand. The need to get back to having fun on sports fields IMO.

[davsand]

37. Good lord--that poor child!

I can only wonder what kind of program led to this. I'd think that any reputable kids' program at that age would be focused on the fun and skills of the sport--but I do realize how screwed up adults can get when it comes to kids competing.

Our daughter plays softball--she's seven. My husband and I both helped coach this year (and have signed up for next summer as well) because we enjoy our daughter and the rest of kids so much. At this level, we don't keep score, and every player bats + EVERYBODY PLAYS!!!

It may sound like chaos, but the kids learn the fundamentals of the game plus they have fun without all the BS associated with competition leagues. The challenge the kids face is to play well and to have fun and be a good sport. That seems about right, for that age group, IMO.

That poor child.


Laura

[loyalsister]

43. That sounds like a good league

Seven year olds should be playing for fun IMO.

After I posted I read an excellent editorial on that very subject:

One of the most popular books published so far in our country was Dale Carnegie’s "How to Win Friends and Influence People."

Today’s column is unofficially titled: "How to Make Enemies and Challenge Parents to Consider What You’re Doing to Your Kids."

In recent days, I’ve been cornered by two moms and a grandmother about the problems of high stakes, cutthroat, elitist youth baseball.

And I worked the shot and discus rings at the recent Show-Me State Games - where athletes younger than 12 were endangering joints and muscles and where I saw a 3-year-old struggle to put the 6-pound shot all the way to 2 feet, 10 inches. Come on, get real!


http://www.columbiatribune.com/2004/Aug/20040827Feat001.asp

[Reverend_Smitty]

39. I work with collegiate athletes every day...

Some are very intelligent and some...well not so much. It's much like you would find in the real world.

These people take their sports very seriously and want to improve their physical performance which is something I see nothing wrong with. Where my job as an athletic trainer comes in is to make sure these people are not pushing themselves too hard, whether it be not eating right or playing injured. I don't have to deal with parents but my partner and I have to have a good line of communication with the coaches, so that when we pull someone out of a game or practice, it is for the athlete's best interest. We also have to gain a great deal of trust with the athlete so that he or she can come and talk to us when there is a problem, 60% of our job is mental. Thats why I think that every high school should have an athletic trainer on staff, even these youth leagues should employ them as well. I don't mean to toot my profession's "horn" but we really are there for the athlete's best interest.

[Mr. Blonde]

40. Let me say this, I am amazed at the work

I see athletic trainers do. Our's never gets a chance to rest, even now in the off season he has to deal with other sports. He just finished with 2 a days for football, in the summer time there are camps. Really outstanding job, and for not enough credit as far as I'm concerned.

[Reverend_Smitty]

41. Yes it is an under appreciated profession

but it is gaining respect in the medical field these days. My professor (the head AT and my idol) works insane hours, especially since it is pre-season...I was talking with him the other day and he told me that he just put in an 80 hour work week and he does it with a smile on his face. We have to be part physical therapist, part first aider, and part psychologist (we deal with some real basket cases). I've seen AT's handle things that a lot of orthopedists and ER docs would have no idea how to treat.

Hell, I haven't had a day off in two weeks and I am just ecstatic that I don't have to be back in the AT room for another 24 hours!