Banning Contact Sports

2.6 million sports related emergency room visits a year; 25,376 children under 19 sent to the emergency room for traumatic brain injury each year (Merkel). Contact sports, a sport in which the participants necessarily come into bodily contact with one another, like football have become more popular among children and they have started to play the sport at earlier ages as well. Although physical activity is beneficial in many ways, contact sports creates many health risks: concussions, chronic traumatic encephalopathy, brain damage, broken bones, and broken growth plates. Because of all of these risks, contact sports should be banned for people under 18.

To begin, contact sports should be banned for children under 18 because of the risk of

It is true that obesity and physical inactivity can be unhealthy and dangerous for a child; it is the 4 leading cause of death after all (Myer); but banning contact sports wouldn’t necessarily cause obesity or physical inactivity. If contact sports are to be banned children can still choose to play a different sport; there are plenty of other sports like soccer and basketball. In fact, sports are becoming a much more popular thing in the US and more children are getting physically active. According to Terry Adirim : “Half of all children aged 5-18 years in the US are thought to participate in organized sports programs, This nears that an estimated 30 million school aged children children are involved in sports, which represents a substantial increase over the last 20-30 years (Adirim). Now that more and more children are playing sports, obesity and physical inactivity isn’t as high as it once was. Because of this, banning contact sports won’t mean no physical activity; other sports are still available to them and children most likely will go pick a different sport to play. Therefore contact sports should be banned for children under 18.

In conclusion, contact sports are a dangerous sport because of the high chance of injury and the risk of brain damage so children under 18 should not be able to play it. Although obesity could become a problem, it most likely won’t because more children are getting active and playing other sports. If contact sports aren’t banned, many children are going to get injured and possibly affect them for life. So ff you have a child that plays contact sports or you are a child that plays contact sports, stop playing now for your own