Youth sports; how do we reduce the risk of injury according to the NY Times. We are in prime athletic season for school sports. Children are at risk during their growing years because of the changes in their bodies, growth plates and the fact that their bodies do not all respond the same when playing repetitive sports. The NY Times recently offered some well researched advice regarding children in sports and injury risk. True, all sports carry some risk of injury, especially contact sports such as Football and Rugby, but sports that are popular warm weather activities such as basketball and tennis are also known for knee or ankle injuries. Check out the NY Times article here Reducing Injury Risk in Youth Sports By Jane E. Brody May 14, 2018 Few parents enroll their children in organized sports with the expectation that they will get injured. Yet children often do get hurt, and sometimes those injuries can sideline young athletes for months or an entire season and may sour them on participating in the future. The effects of sports injuries may even linger into adulthood. “Injuries are often considered an inevitable part of sports. However, like other injuries, sports injuries are potentially preventable,” according to Dr. Terry A. Adirim, a sports medicine expert who is now a health affairs specialist for the Department of Defense, and Dr. Tina L. Cheng, director of pediatrics at Johns Hopkins School of Medicine. Reducing the risk of injury, they wrote in the journal Sports Medicine, requires taking into account the physical and physiological differences between children and adults, differences that can leave youngsters more vulnerable to injury. Children have a larger surface area and bigger heads relative to their body size; their growing cartilage is more susceptible to stresses; and most lack “the complex motor skills needed for certain sports until after puberty.” Read more