Rugby is a form of child abuse, study says

[Neils]

Rugby is a form of child abuse, study says

Academics claim sporting organisations have effectively groomed children and parents into accepting brain injuries
Telegraph Reporters 1 February 2024 ? 11:57pm


Rugby being played in schools is a form of child abuse, a study has suggested.

The risk of serious injury carried by high-impact sports is contrary to child abuse laws, academics at the universities of Winchester, Nottingham Trent and Bournemouth argued.

The academics claimed that neither children nor their parents are legally able to give informed consent to take part, and that sporting organisations have effectively groomed both groups into accepting brain injuries caused by the sports.

The paper, set to be published in Sports, Ethics & Philosophy: Journal of the British Philosophy of Sport Association, and seen in advance by the Times, draws a distinction between sports that are designed to involve physical impact and those that may result in injuries by accident.

Its recommendations, which only apply to children, not adults, cite the view that ?knocks to the head? can contribute to brain damage which can in turn lead to conditions such as dementia or Parkinson?s.
?Sports for children should not intentionally harm their brains?

The paper also argues that those who begin playing rugby as children are more likely to risk brain trauma than those who start later in life. 

Eric Anderson, a professor of sport at the University of Winchester who led the study, told the Times: ?Sports for children should not intentionally harm their brains. They should focus on fun, health and social development rather than conditioning them to play elite-level sport.

?These collisions cause cognitive harm and increase the risk of neurodegenerative diseases and dementia; they are therefore abusive to a child?s brain. Cultural perception is that striking a child outside sport is abuse but striking a child in sport is somehow socially acceptable. We are trying to change that. It doesn?t matter what the social context is, the brain is damaged in both.?


A spokeswoman for the Rugby Football Union (RFU) said player welfare was the organisation?s ?top priority?.

?PE in school is compulsory,? she said.

?However, rugby is not. The RFU and England Rugby Football Schools? Union work closely to support teachers and coaches with guidance and resources, especially around players? safety and welfare.

?Rugby for young people at schools or clubs in England exists in different forms ? contact, reduced contact and non-contact. Rugby has established and been at the forefront of concussion and injury surveillance, education and law changes using evidence to proactively manage player welfare.

?Playing rugby provides significant physical and mental-health benefits along with life skills gained from playing a team sport which has strong values. Against a backdrop of decreased physical activity and a global obesity epidemic in children, we believe rugby has a role to play in keeping people active, healthy and engaged.?

[backdoc]

"Eric Anderson is Professor of Sport, Masculinities & Sexualities. He holds four degrees, has published numerous books and over 60 peer-reviewed journal articles. His research is regularly featured on international television, in print and digital media.

He is the leading academic expert on gay men in sport, and the architect of Inclusive Masculinity Theory, which was generated from his research showing that decreased homophobia leads to a softening of heterosexual masculinities. This permits young men to kiss, cuddle and maintain bromances with other males, while also leading to semi-sexual behaviours between men and the increased recognition of bisexuality. "

No bias here, then   

[Shugs]

Article is one of the biggest pieces of nonsense I?ve seen in a long time.

[Garuda]

Children are more likely to suffer serious injury crossing the street than playing team sports. Let's ban all vehicles.

[FishingWasp]

Children are more likely to suffer serious injury crossing the street than playing team sports. Let's ban all vehicles.

Not in Wales, if you believe our politicians, now that the 20mph default is in!!!! Next we'll extrapolate and reduce it further so that we can have a man with a red flag in front. Could be part of a master plan to re-employ redundant steelworkers??

[WonkyWasp]

How are motor bikers managing, WWW?  We're waiting for them to arrive over the border from Abergavenny in massed hordes.  All doing  80 mph and going vvvvrrrrmmmmm.  Surely a motor bike going at 20 mph is going to fall over?? 

[NellyWellyWaspy]

How are motor bikers managing, WWW?  We're waiting for them to arrive over the border from Abergavenny in massed hordes.  All doing  80 mph and going vvvvrrrrmmmmm.  Surely a motor bike going at 20 mph is going to fall over??

Somewhere just under 10mph is the limit for balance on a motorbike, but then only with clutch control, keeping the revs up. 20mph is OK for very short distances, but quite uncomfortable.

As a biker, who lives only 75 miles from the passport booth on the A44, I can give Wales a miss for now. 20mph is not fun.

[WonkyWasp]

Thank you Nelly. I didn't think it was good news for the mental health of bikers.  Abergavenny is our nearest town,  and Mr Wonky visits it quite often'  he generally comes back cursing it  (the speed limit, not Aber). 

[baldpaul101]

Large chunks of London are now 20 mph zones. TFL have introduced it on selected roads & several boroughs have put blanket speed limits in place.

Apparently, "monitoring of the 20mph schemes in London shows that since they were introduced, the number of collisions has reduced by 25% (from 406 to 304), and collisions resulting in death or serious injury have also reduced by 25% (from 94 to 71), demonstrating the huge impact of lowering speeds across London."

But that's TFL's own figures so should be suitably doubted.
I have to say that once you get used to it, its actually more relaxing and a lot of the time roads are so busy you can't do much over 20 if you wanted to.

[JF]

The 20mph limit is a lazy approach, a headline grabber.

Find the roads where the accidents occur and impose a speed limit there. If it doesn't reduce the accidents there then it's a pointless exercise.

[westwaleswasp]

To be brutally honest, as a teacher,  the incoming disaster that Wales is ushering in, based on a false dichotomy between skills and knowledge, is a far worse example than the 20 mph. Councils can at least exempt roads, it might cost time and money, and the research on 20 mph be dodgy as hell, but nobody bar the private sector can avoid the Welsh educational equivalent of the Titanic. Even Guardian columnists have laid into it,and in Wales the education is entirely devolved to a Labour government of nearly 25 years standing.  No separate sciences anywhere, areas of learning experience where any teacher will do, and removal of English lit and Lang as separate GCSEs. Core Cymraeg of course, but cemeg can do one. Who needs doctors and scientists anyway? Turning Wales' educational system into a mickey mouse laughing stock one GCSE at a time, all based on discredited educational research.

[NellyWellyWaspy]

Correlation and causation.

The safety 'experts' (mathematical morons) get these two mixed up all the time. Too much for their two brain cells to cope with.

Lots of accidents where the estimated speed was 'high' == high speed causes accidents.

Except, it doesn't. It is a correlation only. Sorry, I did statistics to final year at University, got a first in that subject.

If you speak to any police officer over a quiet can of beer (rather than officially), you will be told that over 50% of serious multiple vehicle accidents are caused by bad driver decisions. By far and away top of that list is distracted driving, followed by inattentive driving. Then driving under the influence of drink and/or drugs. Not speed. Speed rarely causes an accident. Speed only comes in to the damage caused, to people, animals, vehicles and property. The faster you go, the more the damage.

Rather like saying guns cause shootings. They don't. The human pulling the trigger does.

20mph speed limits (and the 50mph ones) are merely a nanny state trying to control your lives.

Take schooling, that WWW (and I) both have experience of.

A huge percentage of prison inmates cannot adequately read or write (functionally illiterate). That means they cannot pass a driving test, and makes them virtually unemployable, which leads to them turning to a life of crime to make ends meet (at first anyway).

So, does their illiteracy cause their criminal behaviour? No, it is a consequence.

Take it a step further. A massively high percentage (over 75%) of prisoners were excluded for long periods from school when young, most were permanently excluded from at least two schools.

Experts said that exclusion caused them to become criminals. So, now schools can't exclude pupils. Result, teachers leave the profession due to assaults/burnout and having no means to 'control' unruly pupils. So even more pupils turn to crime. Quality decision making. Not.

The proper response would have been to question why we think sitting 30-40 pupils in a room and lecturing them from the front (unzipping their heads and pouring in knowledge) could possible work for 100% of human children? The reason we do it? Because it is the cheapest way.

Correlation and causation? Cause or consequence? Statistics are extremely dangerous when used to make decisions about how to rule a society.

20mph speed limits are there because of this brain dead thinking process by politicians. Just as the mad rush to EVs is bonkers. Cold, calm debate is lost on the morons we elect to lead us (well, I don't, I work on the principle that to vote for any of them is to encourage them to make free with our lives, and I won't do that).

[FishingWasp]

At least you can vote for your politicians. The latest proposal from the senedd i(the Welsh assembly) is to remove names and show only parties on voting forms. The parties will then appoint senedd members. I suspect the result will be less voter engagement and lower turnout at elections, eroding democracy. But more dangerously the parties will appoint only those who will rubber stamp policies rather than question them. And no idea yet how Independants will appear on voting papers.

[Lwasp]

Correlation and causation.

Not sure your arguments are that well presented NWW. In the case of lowering of road speeds the most recent campaigns don't say that speed causes the accident, they talk about pedestrian survivability at various speeds. If I recall emphasising the % of pedestrians expected to live at various speeds. Isn't the basis of the lowering of the speed not "We can stop accidents" but "You're going to have accidents so we can reduce the death toll as a result"? As you say, if causes are due to driver behavior then try and limit the damage.

And as to education, you start off your argument positing that being functionally illiterate leads to unemployability leads to a life of crime. You argue yourself that illiteracy does cause criminal behavior. I agree there are different possible policy solutions that can be pursued to address this, but I fail to see how your argument makes illiteracy a consequence of criminality.

Interest subject none the less.

[backdoc]

There were 5 road fatalities per billion vehicle miles travelled in 2022 in the UK.

Of these, 385 were pedestrians [out of 1711 total deaths]. There were 5901 seriously injured pedestrians in addition.

The cost to society of reducing the speeds to 20 mph - more pollution in urban areas directly from emissions and indirectly from tyres and brakes, cost in fuel, engine strain etc - has to be weighed against this.

IMO roads are for vehicles, and pedestrians need to take considerable care when crossing them, sticking mostly to designated crossings and not walking with earphones or using phones.