The health issues of youth sports are concerns regarding the health and wellbeing of young people between the ages of 6 and 18 who participate in an organized sport. Given that these athletes are physically and mentally underdeveloped, they are particularly susceptible to heat illness, eating disorders and injury; sufficiently severe conditions can result in death. Awareness and prevention are key factors in preventing many health issues in youth sports.
Heat illness and dehydration Heat illnesses are a recent concern in youth athletics. They include heat syncope, muscle cramps, heat exhaustion, heat stroke and exertional hyponatremia. Heat illness and dehydration are typically brought on by conditions of high temperatures and high humidity. These conditions carry increased risk for young athletes, particularly if at the beginning of a season when they are less fit. Other factors which increase vulnerability include: heat-retaining clothing, recent illness, previous experience with heat illness, chronic conditions, or sleep deprivation. Additional precaution is to be taken if the child is taking supplements or using cold medication. Heat illnesses are among the primary causes of sports-related death or disability, and as such they require immediate medical attention. Symptoms to watch for are dry or sticky mouth, headache, dizziness, cramps, unusual fatigue, confusion, and loss of consciousness
Eating disorders Eating disorders are generally not a primary concern amongst youth athletes, however they are unusually prevalent in wrestling and aesthetic sports such as gymnastics. These place heavy emphasis upon weight and body image as ingredients for success in competition. In order to compete, 81% of wrestlers will deliberately lose weight. This involves shedding 3% to 20% of their body weight — most of which being dropped within a short period of time. For rhythmic gymnasts, “success is strongly influenced by visual appeal and body aesthetics. Rhythmic gymnasts are often required to meet certain weight targets to attain and maintain a thin shape.” The pressure to please is intense, and correspondingly, 42% of female aesthetic athletes have been diagnosed with eating disorders. Youth athletes employ a variety of methods to lose weight, including dehydration, fasting, diet pills, laxatives, vomiting, and the use of rubber exercise suits. These practices result in “decreased plasma and blood volume, reduced cardiac outputs, impaired thermoregulatory responses, decreased renal blood flow, and an increase in the amount of electrolytes lost from the body.”
Long-term effects It has been postulated that wrestlers may suffer impaired growth and development due to their fluctuating body weight. However, a study examining high school wrestler growth patterns concluded that participation does not stunt growth. In relation to eating disorders, young female gymnasts may suffer from delayed menarche, menstrual irregularities, low body fat, and delayed maturity. Of these athletes, 11% are at risk for a mental disorder, while 40% risk delayed physical maturation.
Injuries An issue unique to youth athletics is that the participants’ bones are still growing, placing them at highest risk for injury. Around 8,000 children are rushed to the emergency room daily because of sports injuries. High school athletes suffer approximately 715,000 injuries annually. Regarding American football, there are five times more catastrophic injuries in high school than compared to college-level competition.
Overuse injuries Nearly half of all injuries in pediatric sports medicine are due to overuse. Such injuries can be attributed to inappropriate workout intensity and overlong athletic seasons. Other risk factors include sleep deprivation, general physical and cognitive immaturity, dietary imbalance and inadequate physical fitness. Among young athletes, common overuse injuries are stress fractures, which include injury of the: According to research, the frequency of injury varies from sport to sport as well as depending on the sex of the athlete. Body alignment can also impact overuse injuries. Types of body alignments are bowlegs, unequal leg lengths or flat/high arched feet, femoral neck/pubis, femoral shaft, tibia, fibula, metatarsals, calcaneus, and cuboid
Concussions
Although there has been a longstanding association between repetitive head injuries and subsequent brain damage amongst professional athletes such as boxers and football players, a possible association amongst youth and adolescent amateur sport participants has only recently been taken more seriously. For people of the age 22 and under, concussions have risen more than 500% since 2010. Concussions and serious brain injuries were previously considered important if there was an association with loss of consciousness but there is mounting evidence to suggest that injury may occur even when there are more subtle signs and symptoms such as dizziness and confusion. As the brain of a child or an adolescent is still developing, there is fear that these injuries may have permanent long term consequences.
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