EFFECT OF OBESITY ON INJURY RISK IN HIGH-SCHOOL FOOTBALL PLAYERS

Little is known about the relative injury risk of obese adolescent foo tball players. Two high school varsity teams were followed prospective ly for injuries after measurement of height, weight, and triceps and s ubscapular skinfolds during the preseason. Certified athletic trainers who were present at all practices recorded all injuries that required a player to miss at least one practice or game. In all, 98 players we re enrolled in the study. Twenty-eight injuries were documented in 24 different players. There were 27 (28%) players with the sum of skinfol ds greater than or equal to 95th percentile for age; eight of them had nine injuries. The overall prevalence of injuries per player per seas on was 0.28 for players less than or equal to 95th percentile and 0.33 for players above this percentile (not significant). High body mass ( body weight >90 kg) was associated with a 2.5 times higher relative ri sk of injury. While this study did not find evidence for an overall hi gher injury rate in overly fat high school football players, an alarmi ngly high incidence of obesity was found in this athletic population.