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.