Sports & Recreation Related Articles & Blog Posts

Turn several hours of fun on the couch into several hours of active fun: Whenever your team makes a first down, celebrate with 10 jumping jacks, scissor jumps, sit-ups or pushups. When your team scores a touchdown, do a 30-second victory dance (exuberant celebrations on the field penalized, exuberant celebrations in the family room get [...]

A contagious skin infection that was once thought of as primarily limited to hospitals, prisons, and nursing homes is now showing up in healthy children, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. These skin infections are caused by tough-to-treat bacteria called methicillin-resistant staphylococcus aureus (MRSA, or resistant staph). As the name implies, antibiotics [...]

The statistics are in, and happily there were no deaths from heatstroke among U.S. football players during the 2002 season (or so far in 2003), according to the National Center for Catastrophic Sports Injuries at the University of North Carolina. About 1.5 million children play full contact football each year in the U.S., and in [...]

Shoes protect the feet; helmets protect the head. Helmets can be very effective at preventing serious head injuries, but nevertheless, head injury during active play remains a leading cause of death among children. Why might this be?

Related concepts: Head injury Introduction to concussion: Children’s energetic exploration of life often results in head “bonks.” Fortunately, most of them are not serious. Nevertheless, when we hear the awful thud of a child’s head, our breath catches for a moment… What is concussion? A brief, temporary loss of consciousness following a blow to the [...]

My 14-year-old son is gearing up for freshman high school football in the fall. Team weightlifting starts next week. Is it healthy? Can this stunt long-term growth?

We know that repeated head injuries can lead to long-term neurologic damage. What happens when kids play football or hockey?

The biggest safety concern in baseball is getting hit with the ball. Traditional hardballs have cork centers that are wrapped in layers of wool. Safety baseballs have a polyurethane core and are the same size and weight as regular hardballs. Tests show that they have the same ‘ bounce’. But safety baseballs cause far less [...]