Violence in High School Sports

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High school sports are one of American student’s favorite extracurricular activities. High school sports provide a sense of school pride and dedication to the athlete’s school. Many students play in hopes of a college scholarship in their desired sport. Despite the dreams that come with sports the sad truth is that many sport careers end short by some sort of injury. Injuries in high school sports vary from a range of things. High school athletes suffer from damage to the brain, spine, bones, ligaments, and tendons. Sports also take a mental toll of the athlete putting them at risk of cardiac arrest. Student Athletes are also pressured to take harmful performance enhancing products and take up harmful dietary patterns to try and gain an edge. Sports have many beneficial qualities but can be harmful to the body if performed in an unhealthy fashion. The truth is that anytime an athlete engages in physical activity they are at risk. One of the most serious injuries found in student athletes are concussions. “A concussion is the result of taking a blow to the head hard enough to cause the brain to swell.”- (youthsportssafetystatistics.org). Concussions can cause memory loss and can interfere with daily functions. While an athlete is concussed they either lose consciousness or are impaired while conscious. This injury can also be tragic because if the trauma to the head is strong enough it could cause the brain to bleed. Internal bleeding is a serious injury and hard to treat with it being inside the skull. If an athlete has multiple concussions is can damage ones brain to the point of losing intelligence. A human’s brain is the vault of all the memories, knowledge, and unconscious actions. If this vault is constantly battered it can ... ... middle of paper ... ...one unlucky blow to the head could cause a person to change forever. Injuries in physical activities are not the only threat for an athlete to be cautious of, Performance enhancing substances and stress can also take a harmful toll on the body. Substances containing ingredients that are hardly researched are allowed into drinks, powders, and pills to assist athletes. This can be more dangerous than the potential injuries. Stress is also a key factor in one’s health. Too much stress can wear down the body and mind. Consequently, any time an athlete engages in physical activity they are at risk of injury. Works Cited http://www.stopsportsinjuries.org/media/statistics.aspx http://ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2267335 http://youthsportssafetyalliance.org http://newsinfo.iu.edu/webpagenormal/u727.htm http://orthoinfo.org http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19691361

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