Pediatricians Seek to KO Youth Boxing
Sep-02-2011

Steven Galeano was a problem child. He couldn't stay out of fights and was "off the hook," his father Edwin recalls.
But then Steven decided he wanted to start boxing, like his brothers. For the last four years, he has been venting his anger and frustration on the heavy bag at John's Boxing Gym, in the Bronx, N.Y., rather than on other neighborhood kids.
"I [learned] how to control myself," Steven says. "If I have something on my mind, a little stress, I just take it out on the bag."
Along the way, he and his trainers also noticed that he has talent. He's now a ranked 12-year-old boxer in the U.S. and proud-"so far"-of what he's accomplished.
Boxing has turned Steven around, according to his father, but if the nation's leading organization of pediatricians has its way, Steven would trade in his boxing gloves for a basketball, tennis racket, or swim goggles.
In a new policy statement published today in the journal Pediatrics, the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP), along with the Canadian Paediatric Society (CPS), is recommending that doctors "vigorously oppose boxing for any child or adolescent" under the age of 19 because of the risk of concussions and other injuries, and instead steer kids toward non-collision sports.
"There's no reason why we as pediatricians should be condoning such a thing, when we know that the risk is not zero for these kids, and perhaps the damage may be more long lasting," says Claire LeBlanc, MD, the lead author of the statement and the chair of a CPS committee on sports medicine and active living.
The pediatricians based their recommendation, in part, on the number of boxing injuries recorded by U.S. and Canadian health officials. In 2003, for instance, there were roughly 14 boxing-related hospital visits for every 1,000 people between the ages of 12 and 34 who participate in the sport, according to data from the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission.

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