The Most Dangerous Game
Feb
9
2009
I enjoy reading whatever’s on the cereal box during breakfast. One side panel, on a chocolatey crispy rice cereal, was encouraging children to be active – probably because it is a sugary cereal and they need this public service announcement to make up for the unhealthiness of the cereal.
Part of the panel showed various sports and how many calories the average child would burn during 30 minutes of each sport. It listed
- baseball: 60 calories
- soccer: 90 calories
- basketball: 90 calories
- football: 120 calories
So not only is baseball the most boring sport to watch, it is the most boring to play – it burns the fewest calories.
But don’t take the word a a cereal box for it – go look up calorie burn rates by sport. Beware though – baseball isn’t even on that list. It must not have qualified. Here are some excerpts, using the general non-game category for 130-lb person:
- basketball: 354 calories per hour
- soccer: 413
- football: 472
- swimming laps: also 472
And soccer? Don’t let your kids play soccer. Not only is it average at best for exercise, it is dangerous for high school kids to play (especially for girls) (and more dangerous than football). The combination of moderate exercise and high risk means that soccer should not be an option.
But football? The combination of good exercise and average risk factor means that football is a good option for your child. I suppose swimming might be even better, with the combination of good exercise and low risk factor.
Football players are more likely to be injured, but fractures and sprains usually heal with no lasting problems. Concussions are where you want to be concerned about your child. Football helmets are being improved to reduce concussions. What is being done in soccer to reduce concussions? And yes, even though soccer is supposed to be non-contact, soccer players are more prone to concussions than are football players.
Football is a contact sport, but the uniform and gear are setup to protect the players from damage. In soccer, only your shins are safe (even though shins heal fairly easily compared to concussions or ACL tears). You could try this article, which states “The injury rates, calculated per 100 athlete exposures during total events (games plus practices), were: baseball, 1.7; softball, 1.0; soccer, 2.1; and football, 1.5.”
“Those who seek my life lay snares {for me;} And those who seek to injure me have threatened destruction, And they devise treachery all day long.”
– Psalm 38:12