General Safety

No matter the sport, maximizing performance and minimizing injury risk comes from lengthening muscles to produce the most mechanically efficient and productive motion. 

Most people know that eating disorders can be life-threatening.  What most people don't know is that eating disorders cause more deaths annually than all other mental and emotional health conditions combined.  That's why the Chicago-based Timberline Knolls Residential Treatment Center and the National Eating Disorder Association (NEDA) have designated the week of February 21 to 27, 2010 as National Eating Disorder Awareness Week. 

A first aid kit in the car and medicine cabinet are musts for parents with children playing sports.

As part of an ongoing effort to reduce the catastrophic injuries and illnesses in youth sports, the National Athletic Trainers' Association (NATA) convened a summit of an alliance of 29 other leading health care and sports organizations in Sacramento, California to raise awareness about youth sports safety and promote legislation to improve health care for young athletes.

Unless your child has been to physical therapy for an injury before, you may not know what to think or expect as a parent. Here's some advice for parents from a physical therapist to make the rehabilitation process as smooth as possible and keep what's important in perspective.

The phrase "No pain, no gain" has been around forever, it seems.  There is only one problem: it is bad advice! If your child experiencing pain in daily activities, take him to a doctor, don't let him play or practice in pain.

"The holiday season represents the highest probability of distractions and breakdown of normal supervision routines," said Harvey Barnett Ph.D., pediatric drowning prevention specialist and founder of Infant Swimming Resource, which offers the following winter water safety tips to help families protect their young children as they travel this holiday season.

Which high school sports pose the highest risk of severe injury?  Football leads the list, slightly more than wrestling and more than twice the rate in girls' basketball and girls' soccer.  The safest of the nine studied? Girls volleyball.