Football And Brain Injuries: What You Need To Know

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Due to worries about the safety of the game, parents have been on the fence wondering if they should allow their kids to play football. Football has several social and physical advantages, including discipline, teamwork, and physical conditioning, but it also has a high risk of brain damage, other injuries, and mental health issues. Parents try to consider both the disadvantages and the possible rewards. Another decision the parents must make is whether the pressure of football is a good or bad thing. It’s reasonable to see why many parents are against their children playing football because of the negative effects; however, the positive effects of football outweigh the possibility of the negative effects. The main reason parents are extremely …show more content…

Chronic traumatic encephalopathy causes a complete change in behavior, which is brought up in the article Football and Brain Injuries: What You Need to Know. The author states, “Common symptoms include memory loss, impaired judgment, aggression, and depression. Some former athletes with CTE have committed suicide or murder” (Football and Brain Injuries: What You Need to Know). This quote shows what the worst case scenario is from these consecutive head injuries. Usually parents think with this mindset, so it makes them lean away from football. With words like “suicide” and “murder” parents don’t want to let their kids play football because they don’t want their child to have that in store for their future. Injuries are a major downside to football, which makes parents skeptical about letting their child play. A real life example of this can be found in the book Friday Night Lights when the star running back of the team tears his acl. “Boobie” wasn’t the best student at school, with that in mind, he knew football was the only way he’d get into college. With his acl tear he wouldn’t be able to play football and with that he’d be unable to attend

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