When the Desire Street Academy football team played in a Louisiana state semifinal playoff game yesterday, the Lions featured three starting linemen who weigh at least 135kg and two others who weigh 122kg and 127kg, reflecting a trend in which high school players are increasingly reaching a size once seen almost exclusively among linemen in college and the NFL.
High school football rosters reveal weight issues that go beyond the overall increase in obesity rates among children in the US. Two studies this year, one published in The Journal of the American Medical Association and another in The Journal of Pediatrics, found that weight problems among high school football players - especially linemen - far outpaced those of other male children and adolescents.
Now coaches and researchers fear that some young athletes may be endangering their health in an effort to reach massive proportions and attract the attention of college recruiters.
PHOTO: NY TIMES NEWS SERVICE
"The old saying was, 'Wait till you get to college to make it a business,'" said Rusty Barrilleaux, the coach at Hammond High in southeastern Louisiana and a former offensive lineman at Louisiana State. "It's still fun, but if you want to get to college, you have to get that size. The pressure is definitely on."
TROUBLING STATS
While massive size may make a small number of players more attractive to recruiters, doctors and researchers say they are growing concerned about long-term health risks associated with being overweight and obese. Some advocate weight limits for high school football, similar to a cap of 129kg for heavyweight wrestlers.
A study of more than 3,600 high school linemen in Iowa, published in January in The Journal of the American Medical Association, found that 45 percent were overweight and 9 percent were classified with severe adult obesity. This compares with 18 percent of male children and adolescents who are overweight.
Another study of 650 football players in Michigan youth leagues from ages 9 to 14, published last month in The Journal of Pediatrics, found that 45 percent were overweight or obese, with the problem more prevalent among linemen, who are typically the biggest players on the team.
"That's staggering," said Robert Malina, a professor emeritus of kinesiology at Texas and the lead author of the Michigan study. "Youngsters are already being rewarded for being big and overweight before playing big-time football."
He said he was concerned that the culture of football "puts a premium on big boys the way gymnastics puts a premium on small, underweight girls."
High school football players are participating in a sport that is becoming increasingly businesslike and pressure-filled, even though only 6 percent of seniors go on to play in college.
Weight-training programs are essentially conducted year-round. Linemen face pressure to keep up with counterparts who are getting bigger. They also face urging from coaches to gain or maintain weight and from parents who hope they might receive college scholarships.
And it takes nothing more than turning on the television to see the gargantuan size needed to play on the line in college and in the NFL.
For those who want to gain weight, legal dietary supplements are readily available and largely unregulated. Also, high school athletes who choose to use banned performance-enhancing drugs are unlikely to be caught; only three states have drug-testing programs, and they are not considered rigorous.
Despite the success and popularity of the Chicago Bears' William Perry, known as the Refrigerator, players over 130kg were not common in the NFL in the 1980s. By the summer of 2005, though, more than 600 players weighing 130kg and above were listed on training camp rosters.
A 2003 study by the University of North Carolina said that 56 percent of NFL players were considered obese. NFL linemen have a 52 percent greater risk of dying from heart disease than the general public, and are 3.7 times more likely to die of heart disease than other players, according to a 1994 study by the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health.
A similar kind of "fat race" is occurring among high school linemen, leaving them at risk of heart disease, high blood pressure, elevated cholesterol levels, diabetes, breathing difficulties like sleep apnea and increased susceptibility to stress fractures and muscle-joint pain, said Duane Alexander, director of the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development at the National Institutes of Health.
"Clearly, players are getting bigger, but also fatter," said Alexander, a pediatrician who has studied the increased size of football players. "They are putting themselves at risk of staying obese throughout adult life."
Definitive national statistics are not available for high school players, Alexander said, but he noted that anecdotal evidence from various states was troubling. In Indiana, he said, seven players weighed more than 115kg among the state prep football finalists in 1985; in 2004, 50 players did.
In western Pennsylvania, Alexander said, 15 high school players weighed at least 135kg in 1996; in 2005, 71 players did.
Kelly Laurson, a doctoral candidate in kinesiology at Iowa State and the lead author of the Iowa prep study, said he was startled to discover that nearly one in 10 linemen in that state were considered severely obese by adult standards. Essentially, these were players under 180cm tall who weighed 136kg or more. In another setting, Laurson said, they would have been eligible for gastric bypass surgery.
Players, monitored by their coaches and parents, should seek to gain lean muscle on a slow, steady basis, Laurson said, adding, "There's nothing wrong with gaining 30 pounds [15kg] of muscle as long as it doesn't come with 50 pounds [25kg] of fat."
Laurson said that his findings of overweight and obese players in Iowa probably did not represent an isolated case. In states where the football climate was more intense, he said, "It wouldn't surprise me if the numbers were considerably larger."
Louisiana has a much-publicized weight problem in general and also sends a high number of players per capita to the NFL.
Mickey Joseph, the coach at Desire Street Academy and a former quarterback at Nebraska, said that coaches should undergo mandatory instruction on monitoring the weight of high school players.
"I once thought the bigger they are, the better they are," Joseph said. "Now, the bigger they are, the worse they are. They can't move. They can't get out of their stance. They're out of breath."
The linemen at Desire Street, located in New Orleans' Ninth Ward until Hurricane Katrina hit, are weighed twice a week, Joseph said. A sophomore lineman named Courtney Paul, who is 167cm and previously weighed about 130kg, experienced heatstroke during summer training camp and will not be allowed to play until he loses 20kg or more, Joseph said.
"If something happened, he'd win a lawsuit because I should know he's not supposed to be out here," Joseph said.
Paul said he now weighed 115kg and avoided fried food, eating primarily baked chicken and fish.
"I feel much better," he said. "I feel I can move."
Desire Street's starting linemen are about 190cm tall and appear to handle their weight nimbly. Still, Joseph said he had required the starting guard Nick Chartain to slim down from 153kg to 140kg.
"I'd play three plays and be out of breath," said the 187cm Chartain, a senior. After watching his diet and trying not to eat after 6pm, Chartain said, "I can breathe better now. I'm in shape."
PRESSURE TO BE BIG
When Desire Street played yesterday, its opponent, South Plaquemines High, fielded a 150kg freshman nose tackle named Jeffery Espadron. If college recruiters eventually become interested in him, Espadron said, "They're going to notice me because of my size."
He has dropped 4kg and may want to reduce his weight to 142kg, but not to less than 130kg, Espadron said, because "that is too small for a D-lineman. Most linemen I see in the NFL are 290 [130kg] or 300 [135kg]."
High blood pressure and high cholesterol run in the family, Denise Espadron, a nurse and Jeffrey's mother, said. Her husband had recently lost 13kg as the family tried to avoid white rice, white bread, potatoes and sugary drinks, she said, but added, "We love our Popeye's down here. As for fried seafood, I think it's a curse on people in Plaquemines Parish."
Weight limits at all levels of football should be seriously considered, beginning with the NFL, Alexander of the National Institutes of Health said. "Some people would say that's a restraint of trade," he said. "But when you look at the impact these players have on other players and kids, I think there is some contribution, unmeasurable, to the overall problem of obesity in the United States."
Carl Francis, a spokesman for the NFL Players Association, said there was no movement to institute weight restrictions. Bob Colgate, the assistant director of the National Federation of State High School Associations, said the issue of obesity in football was being considered but that further study was needed before any recommendations could be made. One concern is whether weight restrictions would be considered discriminatory.
"They're not doubting the health concerns," Colgate said of high school officials. "But to set a limit on how much players can weigh, they don't want to go down that road until they have research and data to support anything that might be considered."
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