Steve Caplan over at ‘fiveouncesofpain.com‘ wrote what I think is a very silly article entitled ‘mma for kids – you’ve got to be kidding me‘ on the kids and mma topic that I think can be summarized as such:
Eeek!AAaah!OMG!1! Won’t somebody think of the children!!!??!?!
Thankfully he added a nice clip from cbs news to help establish his point, which you can see at the bottom of this post. Addtionally he had a parade of commenters eager to agree with him, none of whom appear to have read this article from the Journal of Sports Science and Medicine, which says:
“The incidence of injury in combat sports has not been adequately reported although it is important to identify the nature and frequency of injuries prior to the implementation of prevention programs. This study compared injury rates treated in Hospital Emergency Departments between different combat sports of boxing, wrestling, and martial arts. A secondary objective described anatomic region and diagnosis of these injuries. Data were obtained on all boxing, wrestling, and martial arts-related injuries that were in the National Electronic Injury Surveillance System database and resulted in Emergency Department visits between 2002 and 2005. Pearson’s chi-square statistics were calculated to compare injury rates for each activity accounting for complex sample design. Martial arts had lower injury rates compared to boxing and wrestling for all diagnoses (p<0.001). Boxing had lower injury rates compared to wrestling for strains/sprains and dislocations. Boxing and wrestling had similar injury rates for concussions. Injury prevention efforts should consider the distribution of injuries and concentrate on preventing strains/sprains in wrestling, concussions in boxing and wrestling, and fractures for all three activities. The findings of the present study do not provide evidence that combat sports have alarmingly high rates of injuries resulting in emergency department visits.“
Most of these folks talked about the dangers inherent in these sports that leave broken children in their wake, as opposed to the ‘safe’ sports like bmx, basketball, boxing, wrestling, or football. Or nice and safe gymnastics. No parent worth anything would allow their kid to do that crazy mma when these better alternatives are around. Right?
So just for comparison, I tried to find some stats about the incidence and prevalence of injury to children in sports. I found Children’s Hospital’s take on it (which is funny considering the opinion Dr. O’Brien in the last article), which mentioned many sports but not martial arts, the CTsafekids project, consumer reports, the Center for Disease Control (CDC) Report, and about.com which again listed many risky sports for kids, but not MA, and a pediatric study of injury.
Finally I found the American Association of Pediatrics opinion on Boxing, which seems to think it should be banned and that headgear doesn’t help with brain injury and may make it worse. It does protect against lacerations and orbital fractures. However, the implication here is that the ‘no strike to the head’ rules in the kids MMA make it safer than boxing.
With no luck, I searched for injury rates relative to mma, and at least found this article in the Journal of Sports Science and Medicine (2006), which said:
Mixed Martial Arts (MMA) competitions were introduced in the United States with the first Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) in 1993. In 2001, Nevada and New Jersey sanctioned MMA events after requiring a series of rule changes. The purpose of this study was to determine the incidence of injury in professional MMA fighters. Data from all professional MMA events that took place between September 2001 and December 2004 in the state of Nevada were obtained from the Nevada Athletic Commission. Medical and outcome data from events were analyzed based on a pair-matched case-control design. Both conditional and unconditional logistic regression models were used to assess risk factors for injury. A total of 171 MMA matches involving 220 different fighters occurred during the study period. There were a total of 96 injuries to 78 fighters. Of the 171 matches fought, 69 (40.3%) ended with at least one injured fighter. The overall injury rate was 28.6 injuries per 100 fight participations or 12.5 injuries per 100 competitor rounds. Facial laceration was the most common injury accounting for 47.9% of all injuries, followed by hand injury (13.5%), nose injury (10.4%), and eye injury (8.3%). With adjustment for weight and match outcome, older age was associated with significantly increased risk of injury. The most common conclusion to a MMA fight was a technical knockout (TKO) followed by a tap out. The injury rate in MMA competitions is compatible with other combat sports involving striking. The lower knockout rates in MMA compared to boxing may help prevent brain injury in MMA events.
So almost half of the injuries in bouts (not practice) were facial lacerations. Cuts. Not major trauma, and these were the big guys. Since the kids matches usually use headgear and don’t strike to the head, there should be less injury.
Where’s the problem?
Just this morning, I saw a very sad article featured on the yahoo front page. In it, a kid has brain damage because his heart stopped after he was struck in the chest, and his brain did not get enough oxygen.
The sport has a long history of deaths, and the parents are planning a lawsuit.
From the article:
That’s right, more than one kid a year dead from youth baseball.
Ironically, this kid was also a martial artist. I bet his parents would never have let him fight MMA. Too dangerous.