nwitimes.com, IN
02-13-07
Sloppy science slights significant story
By John Doherty
Times Correspondent
Stop the presses! This just in. High school football linemen weigh more than their
non-football-playing classmates.
Would you have ever guessed?
Actually, that supposed news debuted on Jan. 24, in no less a publication than
the Journal of the American Medical Association.
It took eminent researchers at Iowa State University to figure that out. And that
was all they figured out. Nonetheless, they went on to "conclude" that nearly half
of the high school offensive and defensive linemen in that state are overweight
and 10 percent are so heavy that they should be considered severely obese.
Thanks to said conclusion and the journal in which it was published, national
headlines resulted.
Buried in the JAMA article -- and the electronic and print media stories it
generated -- was the faulty method the researchers used to arrive at their
conclusion.
Rather than measuring body fat percentage, blood pressure, and resting heart
rate -- which would have provided a true picture of fitness or lack thereof -- the
investigators relied solely on body mass index (BMI), which is calculated from
one's height and weight.
Examining weight vs. height may be a place to start investigating one's state of
health, but it is insufficient for making any conclusions.
The three measures mentioned above are far more sufficient and more closely
approximate the methods of a study on retired NFL players, released on Jan. 30,
and presented at a cardiology conference on Feb. 3 in Hollywood, Fla.
Performed by Dr. Arthur Roberts, a former NFL quarterback, a retired heart
surgeon and president of the Living Heart Foundation, the investigation was bad
news for ex-linemen.
Roberts and his colleagues found 52.2 percent of the former linemen have
metabolic syndrome, in which a person has three or more of the following
conditions: abdominal obesity, high blood pressure, high blood sugar, high
triglycerides (blood fats) and low HDL (good) cholesterol. This compares with
22.2 percent of other retired players and 21.8 percent of the population at large.
Linemen also have a higher rate of diabetes, thicker heart walls and a greater
rate of obesity and high blood pressure. They're also 54 percent more likely than
other NFL retirees to have enlarged hearts. Among linemen, 36.9 percent had
enlarged hearts, as opposed to 24.5 percent of the other retirees.
"Once these players finish their playing days, or once high school and college
athletes who are trying to reach the high level of excellence in the NFL finish
getting as far as they can reach, they need to be concerned about weight
management," Roberts said.
Weight management, Roberts said, means reducing food consumption and
continuing to exercise. "This is not easy for many of the players who sustain
back, neck, knee and shoulder injuries while playing," he said.
Which is another story for another day.
John Doherty is a certified athletic trainer and licensed physical therapist.
This column reflects solely his opinion. Reach him at ptatcsport@sbcglobal.net.
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