New Study Finds High School Football Players Are overweight

Heavy tackles and 300-pound nose guards are common in pro and college football. Now a study shows the trend toward beefier, overweight linemen is emerging at the high school level.

Researchers at Iowa State University found nearly half of the offensive and defensive linemen playing on Iowa high school teams qualify as overweight, and one in 10 meet medical standards for severe obesity.

For years at the pro and college level, teams have sought bigger, stronger linemen who are harder to budge.
Players have responded by adding weight and muscle mass, making the 300-pound lineman fairly common, sports medical experts said.
Recently, however, the National Football League and players have taken greater note of health risks for heavy athletes because of two high-profile NFL player deaths and a 2005 study, which concluded that 56 percent of NFL players fit medical standards for obesity.

The study's researchers began by gathering height and weight data of 3,686 varsity linemen available from rosters from all classes of Iowa high school football teams.
They used that data to calculate a body-mass index, the same tool used for the NFL study.
Of the players analyzed, 28 percent were deemed at risk of being overweight and 45 percent fit the standards for being overweight, including 9 percent who met adult severe obesity standards.


SOURCE:
Physorg.com

This is news that is'nt surprising to me, as I see it at my own High
School (in Washington state).

Not all of the Football players are overwieght, but a disturbingly
large minority of them are, and of that, around half, I'm sure would
calssify as clinically obese.

In todays society of fast food and little exercise, generally one would
think of people who play sports ad being physically fit, yet this is not
so, as I, and the study have noted.
The main problem I think, is that sports culture is far to obsessed
with larger and larger players.
And, that is something we need to change, so as not to further de-
stroy ourselves, not onnly as people, but as a nation.


Comments, Opinions?

this isnt surprising to me either. im sure you have seen the movie "super size me." my 9 year old son and i just watched it the other night and it's pretty nasty the things that people eat. it has a segment about the foods that children eat at schools. no real food. just processed crap. sugar. and more sugar. really kinda pissed the guy off that was making this movie..documentary i guess you can call it...if you havent see it watch it.

my son and i eat junk food and fast food every now and then but never as a steady diet. my son knows that what is being served at these fast food places are bad for the human body. but we swing in and get a burger once or twice a week does he know WHY they serve this crap to the masses yet?? not yet, but he is smart enough that in a few years i wont even have to explain it to him, he'll figure it out.

I also live in washington state wait I should not have said that those men in black will be after me. But anyway its a problem when we after to hear about this on this website. We put far to much into the sport of baseball and we do nothing to help the sport of football with all the arrests and the possibility of becoming overweight because you need that later in life for the sport. One good thing though is at least the runway shows and people are helping to stop models that are to thin from hurting our young people self esteem and weight issues.