Medical Issues in Sports Medicine
Nathan J. Smith MD1
1 Professor of Pediatrics and Orthopaedics (Sports Medicine), University of Washington School of Medicine, Seattle
Today's children live in an environment that prompts an increasing interest in medical issues related to recreational activities and sports participation. The restrictive urban environment, in which most children live, allows for little self-directed play and much of the play of school-aged children is rigidly regulated and organized by adults. The affluence and abundant leisure time of today's adults supports and allows for their involvement in much of children's play. The most readily identified models accepted for the play and games of young people are the varsity and professional sports so prominently displayed through the mass media. Little concern has been given for the appropriateness of these games for the very young; yet they have become the "play" and the games of millions of very young American children. The general secular advance of maturational status allows children of certain highly motivated parents to become highly competent and even elite athletes at younger and younger ages.
Only in the past two decades have organized sports come to make up much of the play opportunity for the elementary school-aged child. More than 17 million young people, many of them preadolescent and as young as 5 or 6 years of age, participate in community-based youth sports programs that are highly organized and generously supported.
