The first week of December marks the end of a major past time in North Carolina, High School Football. Next weekend the State Championship games will be played and hometown heroes will be adorned with glory. The Friday Night Lights mentality
does exist in a lot of small towns across the state. Though most
of the schools do not make it through the playoffs to get to play next
week, by the end of next July the pre-season workouts will be fading
into August practices in the heat. By that time, in towns across
the state in Diners and Coffee Shops people will be asking themselves,
“this could be the year our High School football team becomes state
champions.”
That is why this article in the New York Times is so interesting. It seems that football players tend to be a little bigger than most other adolescents:
High school football rosters reveal weight issues that go beyond the
nation?s overall increase in obesity rates among children. 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.
Of course high school football players have always tried to become
better at the sport, and one way is by bulking up. A lot of
coaches have programs for athletes to hopefully reach the championship.
