All Articles by Lindsey Barton Straus, JD

The public television series In the Life goes inside the aggressive, homophobic world of sports to show how LGBT youth and allies are "Changing the Game."

Boxing is not an appropriate sport for children and teens, say the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) and the Canadian Paediatric Society (CPS), in a new policy statement.

On June 28, 2011, Governor Bobby Jindal signed S.B. 189 into law, adding Louisiana to the list of states (twenty-eight as of September 1, 2011) that have enacted strong youth sports concussion safety laws.

Overuse is to blame for arm injuries among youth baseball players, but throwing curve balls at an early age still increases risk, according to researchers at the University of North Carolina.

High school athletes, especially males, are at the highest risk of suffering exertional heat illness requiring treatment in U.S. hospital emergency rooms, reports the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

Most healthy children and adolescents can safely participate in outdoor sports and other physical activities in a wide range of challenging warm to hot weather, but there are numerous factors that put them at increased risk of exertional heat illness.

Exertional heat illness among youth athletes is preventable if coaches, parents and other adults take appropriate precautions, says the American Academy of Pediatrics in a new report.

On July 27, 2011, D.C. Mayor Vincent Gray signed into law the Athletic Concussion Protection Act of 2011, adding the District of Columbia to the list of states that have passed strong youth sports concussion safety legislation since May 2009.

The Ivy League adopted groundbreaking new rules for the 2011 football season intended to lower the risk of concussion and the number subconcussive hits, including reducing to two the number of full-contact, in-season practices allowed per week. New research suggests that such repeated hits may cause more brain damage than blows resulting in diagnosed concussions.  

While a 2010 study found no evidence that purposeful "heading" of a soccer ball leads to either short-term (acute) or cumulative brain damage, such as cognitive dysfunction, concussion experts nevertheless suggest that steps be taken to minimize the risk of concussive injury to youth soccer players, particularly younger players.