By: Felicia Chen
A rising population of kids like Isaiah Triana, a 10-year-old, have joined the U.S. Fight League national championships from across the country to compete. There have been regulations set for tighter safety precautions to have children be in a safer environment when parents send their children to be involved in this sport.
“Cutting weight is the hardest,” Isaiah Triana said as he prepped for his first Mixed Martial Art (MMA) match.
Losing weight at a young age is perilous, especially during such an important stage of their growing period. Amelie Rosseneu, a dietitian for combat sports, said, “Children are growing and developing. Their body is sensitive and every lack of liquid, energy or nutrients can have a strong negative effect. As a dietitian and a coach, I will never instruct young students to cut weight; the main concern is their health.”
While reducing their diets to meet the weight requirement for a weight category is already unhealthy and can be life-threatening, the safety of the combative sport also draws attention. Across America, Youth MMA remains banned in many states due to the dangerous nature of the sport. It exposes kids to a myriad of injuries: broken bones, lacerations, and brain damage, just to list a few.
In an article in FindLaw, Tanya Roth wrote, “The Times reports that the American Academy of Pediatrics has published a new clinical report discussing what is currently known about concussion care in children and teens. This report points up the increasing evidence that not only are the brains of younger children more susceptible to injury, but those injuries may take longer to heal and can be more damaging than concussions in older adolescents or adults.”
A Cornell University-affiliated neurologist and chief medical officer of the New York Athletic Commission, Dr. Nitin Sethi, elucidated the paramount amount of evidence of how delicate children’s bodies are, from supported data to research to emphasize his points. Children are more prone to head injuries, from concussions and brain damage, which is detrimental to their cognitive thinking and memory. The so-called protective headgear and gloves are meant to reduce the force between the fist and head to prevent unnecessary superficial wounds in children during training or sparring games. However, it is not the best form of protection and continues to expose the children to several other lasting brain injuries.
“This is different than contact sports. This is combat sports. Everything you’re doing is magnified, and that’s especially true for children,” said Dr. Sethi. “There’s kind of a false thinking that when you ban head strikes you make the sport safer – I think that would kind of be taking a simplistic view of that entire situation.”
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