Did you know that there are over 1 million high school football players. so that means that football is very popular with kids around our age group. The Super Bowl is one of the most watched things on television each year. Football can help with the child obesity epidemic. Football can also instill life lessons on to your future children so they can become the best people they could possibly be. Kids on a team sport such as football can increase his possibilities on being on the honor roll. Overall parents should let their kids play football.

Football is a beneficial sport for young men so they can get the discipline they need but have fun at the same time. Former long term NFL player said “they practice half as much as we did and only have about 10% of the contact we had. These guys will play a long time”. Also helmet to helmet hits are greatly diminishing. The helmet to helmet will never be completely eliminated but its has been greatly reduced. What we like to call “old school” coaches are rapidly dying off. When Bill Walsh came on the scene and started winning Super Bowls with no contact practices the football took notice and started adopting his philosophy. In the 2011-2012 season will be known as when the NFL got soft but safe. There was more penalties than every other season ever. The bone cracking hit isn’t cool anymore we still love a great hit but as the pros go “softer” on the playing field the kids and coaches will imitate.
Playing football helps kids get the exercise they need. Childhood obesity remains one of the biggest problems facing the country says Stanley herring a clinical professor at the University of Washington sports and medicine department. Over ? of the children of the country are overweight or obese. A lack of exercise is the main reason that there are so many overweight kids and football is a great option for your kids to get some exercise and have fun doing it.

Wouldn’t you want your kid to be the top in academics in his school? Organized sports don’t just help kids bodies, but their mind as well says Kim Gorgens, clinical associate professor in the graduate school of Professional Psychology at the University of Denver. Frontiers in human Neuroscience in August found that kids who did more aerobic exercise had more compact white matter in the brain which is linked to more cognitive function in the brain. Research suggests that physical activity is essential for learning and retention of learned material. Also the research suggests that kids who play team sports have higher graduation rates overall than kids who don’t.

If your kid played football he would be more prepared for life more than a kid that doesn’t play. “They steep kids in everything from frustration management to diplomacy to collaboration” Kim Gorgens. Football requires the player to discipline himself and to work hard which teaches him to do that in the real world. Also football provides a variety of challenges that will test and help build you future kids perserverance. We all should grow and improve ourselves everyday and football can help him get started on the right foot with good goal setting habits.

The NFL has taken it upon themselves to try and make football safer. The NFL reported 25% drop in head injuries in 2013-2014 and a 36% reduction from 2012. Riddell has put Insite in helmets so in practice and the coaches can tell if the kids are hitting with there head to much so they can tell them to hit lower. Among athletes ages 5 to 15 organized football has 12% fewer injuries per player than organized soccer. A recent study by USA Football that for more than 2,000 youth football players found that fewer than 10% of players experienced an injury of those injuries 2\3 were minor so they could play the same day of the injury.

Football can also be very scary for some players and parents. San Francsico 49ers linebacker Chris Borland rescently retired at 24 over fear of head injuries. Participation rates in pop warner football have fell nearly 10% because of head injuries fears. In 2013 scientists looked at 5 living NFL players brains and found traces of tau one of the proteins in Alheimer’s patients but that’s only 5 out of the thousands of players in the NFL. The hard hits lead to broken bones and concussion

Football can be dangerous but the benefits outweigh  those fears tremendously. Because it can make your kid into the greatest person possible and have your kid be the most prepared he could possibly be.