Getting Bigger, But Not Healthier

SELDOM IF EVER have I seen a very large person in a nursing home, and I have spent a fair amount of time roaming the halls of nursing homes, looking for old friends. Its as if the very large are either too healthy and independent to require assisted living institutional care, or have died before reaching the age and infirmity level requiring it. I suspect the latter. Similarly, out in the public domain, the elderly people I see, those in their seventies, eighties, and nineties, tend to be on the smaller side; rarely do I see an elderly man with the body of a former football lineman. I know such people exist, for at my local senior center there was a gentleman of offensive lineman size, who died only after reaching his mid eighties, and seems to have had fair if not good health until his sudden death. But this, as we like to say, seems to have been an "outlier". Football players are getting much bigger; in the nineteen sixties, when I started watching football as a kid, your average college offensive line would weigh about two thirty a man, at most. Now, of course even high school offensive and defensive linemen at large high schools run about three hundred pounds per player. It is as if we are witnessing rapid evolution in the human body with each generation. Much that I still love football, I have become seriously concerned about the future health of the people who play the game, particularly about the people who play it for decades, especially college and professional players, huge men who do great damage to their bodies for fun, glory, and profit. Also, I wonder what the actual life expectancy is of a three hundred pound six foor four man who plays football into his thirties, compared to the general population. Results are already coming in, and have been for decades. Everyone wo plays football for even a few years gets injured, at one time or another, usuallly several times. Almost all retired football players suffer from some sort of permanent physical damage, arms, legs, back, among many others. then, there's the rempant dementioa, well documented, and well litigated, resulting in a long overdue special fund for afflicted former NFL players. The increasing instance of mental impairment due to frequent concussions even in our era of improved safety equipment, including better helmets, is well known. A shockinly high percentage of former pro players are seriously permanently impaired, physically and or mentally. That, plus the evident shorter lifespan for very large humans, and one wonders about the prospects for longevity for today's young players, even in our era of miracle medical care. It becomes evident that the enthusiastic college athlete who fails to play professional football because he simply isn't quit good enough is actually blessed, not deprived. Everyone who avidly follows a college fotball team has heard the talk on sports talk radio about a player ana a team being "physical", meaning, hard hitting. Foptball has always been a dangerous game, but has increasingly become a violent game of serious body to body collisions, as the virtues of "being physical" are increasingly espoused. Being physical is always touted as a supreme virtue. The size of teh players becomes a topic of discussion, and my red flag raises every time I hear a fan or a coach talk about how such and such a player "needs" to put on weight, needs to get bigger (as if they aren't already big), how a two hundred and sixty pouder needs to become a two hundred eighty or even a three hundred pounder, by spending more time in the weight room. Players who have therby become bigger are celebrated for their improvement, as paragons of football and athletic virtue. The opponent will be big; we must be equally big, if not bigger. It bceomes a never ending arms race of meat and muscle. Lost in all the excitement is any consideration of what effect this will have on the person as he enters middle age and beyond, and all that muscle starts trying to turn into fat, and the health problems; cardio health, atrhritus, and bone and muscle ailments, begin to make their way into the picture, as they do for us all. But why bother to worry about an unknown future? The game is today, and winning is not only everything, it is the only thing.