Team Sports and Health: Happy Super Bowl Sunday!
By:
NWHF Staff
| Posted on: January 29th, 2009
| Share: 
Categories:
Economic Issues •
Policies & Laws •
Food & Nutrition •
Public Health
Here’s a question that’s sure to be unpopular among the thousands of professional and college sports fans in Oregon: As much as we love our Ducks, Beavers, and Blazers, is it time to evaluate our zealous dedication to professional spectator sports? Dare we ask if it might be better for population health to channel at least some of that dedication, and money, into more participatory forms of exercise?
Europeans, particularly the British, have been asking these questions for some time, and are already making changes to school policies following research showing that an over-emphasis on team sports in the UK has meant that many students were “not developing healthy exercise habits.”
Much of these unhealthy habits involve injuries. In the US, the American Medical Association estimates that 12 million student athletes, ages 5 to 22, suffer sports or recreational injuries each year and lose more than 20 million school days in aggregate per year.
One estimate of the medical cost of childhood sports injuries from 28 different sports through age 14 was estimated to be more than $365 billion in 1997.
While deaths of high school students playing football, such as the case of a 15-year old Max Gilpin of Louisville, Kentucky last year, may be rare, injuries are not. In 2001, WebMD reported that sports injuries among people aged 5 to 24 annually result in 2.6 million visits to the nation’s emergency departments — at a cost of $500 million a year.
Nor are these injuries short lived. Emerging studies show that people experiencing concussions in their youth show signs of mental and physical problems even more than 30 years later. A recent study, published in the journal Brain, found that athletes with a history of concussion had worse physical and mental test scores for several years after injury.
Of course, communities do more than merely encourage team contact sports in schools. Cities and universities spend large sums of public money encouraging people to watch those sports, and consume food, beverages and other products while they do.
What kind of money do we, the public, spend on spectator sports? Consider the amount of public funding spent by the New York Yankees — even before anyone buys a single ticket or a single beer and hot dog:
The Yankees recently asked New Yorkers for $370 million in new taxpayer-backed financing for their new stadium. That’s in addition to the nearly $1 billion from previous financing, and $660 million that the city is using to replace parkland to be “sacrificed for the new stadium and transportation improvements,” according to Jim Dwyer in the New York Times.
For that $370 million, the team will be purchasing $10 million worth of “suite level upgrades,” putting $34 million into sound and television system improvements, and dedicating $137 million to food services such as a new steakhouse and a Hard Rock Café
What does this have to do with the public’s health? Aside from the alternative ways the money could be spent, for one thing, sports stadiums and professional sports teams are more likely to be closely associated with heavy drinking, violence, vandalism, DUIs and public disturbances. Other research shows that sports stadiums can breed higher levels of prostitution than in other parts of the city.
Of course you don’t need to leave the confines of your home to take part in unhealthy statistics.
Consider the following trends associated with Super Bowl Sunday:
Americans consume 11 million pounds of potato chips, 8 million pounds of tortilla chips, and 4 million pounds of popcorn on Super Bowl Sunday (U.S. Snack Food Association).
The average Super Bowl watcher consumes about 1,200 calories during the game (Calorie Control Council) and 30 million pounds of snack food during the day which is twice the average daily amount (Snack Food Association).
During Super Bowl week, beer companies sell an additional $12 million in beer during Super Bowl week (AC Nielsen)
While it might be considered un-American to ask if these traditions should be discouraged, is it unpatriotic to wonder what societal factors might have caused this extreme dedication to team and spectator sports and if we might want to adjust some of these priorities — even just a little?
Next entry: 
Previous entry: 
Back to main
