Same here. When did Boston University start publishing about the CTE/football connection? 10 or 15 years ago? A couple I know, one with a public health degree from an Ivy, still let one of her kids play through all of that, and he played at the college level, too.

At the same time, a lot of parents (myself included) steered kids to other sports. That had another effect: there was even more pressure on parents who didn't care about CTE (and their kids) to get into football because kiddie leagues and especially high school teams were short of players. This happened to a friend whose two boys were strong hockey players, the coach at their school pushed them to try out for football the following season.

It's a deeply ingrained cultural tradition in a lot of places. It's an extremely hard sell to tell people to reject their traditions because of a relatively nebulous and uncertain danger. "I played football and I was fine" is a powerful argument.

Unless it’s actually banned below a certain age, what are you going to do if that’s what they want to do with their life?

If they don’t play and everyone else does, their development will be many years behind their peers which makes it unlikely they could play at a high level.

But maybe you’re okay with that.

They should remove all padding and safety equipment, and institute severe penalties for any contact that could cause injury. The sport would probably become sane, but people like the violence, so this isn't going to happen.

Football, boxing... seem the top two to cross off. I think skiing is perhaps the third to cross off.

As someone who has had multiple concussions in other sports, the impacts in youth football are absolutely sufficient to cause concussions and more minor (but still cumulatively damaging) trauma. The fact that they're a repeated part of the game and not occasional incidents is very, very bad.

Requiring a child to play football should be actual child abuse, and even allowing it should be frowned upon the way that letting a child play with a blowtorch is.

> playing at nfl level and kid level is something very different

Correct. NFL payers are better paid, get better medical care, have better training and equipment, and their brains are more developed.

Sure but the quality of gear you get in the NFL is much higher than what your typical kid gets. I regret the two years of football I played in high school.

Yes! A child with a developing brain, and no medical staff on the sidelines is potentially in a worse situation.

Yes, and?

It's well established that the effects of repeated head trauma are cumulative, with progressively longer healing periods, worse symptoms, etc. And that sub-concussive impacts also accumulate along with the concussive impacts.

From the article: The bulk of the head impacts that these former NFL players experienced didn’t occur at the NFL level. They occurred at the collegiate level ... and at the high school level and in many cases the youth level. And all of those cumulative hits to the head added up to result in an increased risk,” said Daneshvar.

did you even read? the bulk happened at collegiate level

also there are studies on this

McKee et al. (2023) – Neuropathologic and Clinical Findings in Young Contact Sport Athletes Exposed to Repetitive Head Impacts (JAMA Neurology) [https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamaneurology/fullarticle/2...]

Alosco et al. (2017) – Age of First Exposure to Tackle Football and Later-Life Cognitive Impairment and Neuropsychiatric Symptoms (Translational Psychiatry) [https://doi.org/10.1038/tp.2017.197]

even intl football headers have concerns

As mentioned elsewhere here the damage is cumulative and started in their youth

From an injury perspective: What are they? Let's assume we're talking MS/HS football where the mass of the players is enough to really do some damage.

Provide your data Mr. Thrwaway, if that even is your real name.