Children’s Weightlifting: The Immutable Misconception
The preconceived notion that weightlifting is dangerous and stunts children’s growth is a long-standing misconception, one that persist when any form of media introduces the topic of children and weightlifting. With widespread fear among parents and guardians about the potential dangers or harm that it could impose on their children, many outright forbid their children to partake. Commonly believing that their “vulnerable” bones are far too susceptible to this danger! However, recent research shows that, under proper supervision and with age-appropriate weights, weightlifting will contribute positively to a child’s physical development and growth. We’ll take a deeper examination in what causes this misconception and how weightlifting would benefit them, rather than hurt.
Proper supervision and technique are essential in every other sport we teach our children, and weightlifting is no different. However its widespread and mainstream concern stems from the misconceptions that are tagged alongside it, rather than any evidence that points towards it. Other parents or guardians who have more reasonable concerns about unsupervised, self implemented weightlifting do have reason to be worried, but in reality they should be MORE concerned about this happening in the more common youth sports like Soccer, where the rate of injury is substantially higher.
Studies performed by The American Academy of Pediatrics show that youth injuries in weightlifting are primarily caused by improper form, lack of supervision, and strength-inappropriate/skill-inappropriate use of weights for the child. When weightlifting’s factors are properly managed by a youth certified trainer (or anyone with a strong understanding of youth physiology,) children will not only avoid injuries but promote positive growth results. The NSCA has proper guidelines, that with a proper amount of supervision will result in positive strength, ligament, and coordination improvements. Weightlifting is so safe that it was proven to be 2545x less likely to result in injury than other youth sports. Despite this, if an average joe saw two videos, one of a child getting injured in a soccer game and one in a weightlifting incident, 9 times out of 10 that adult will have no problem saying that children shouldn’t be lifting, yet chalk up the soccer injury to a normal accident. Even with its proven safety records, why does weightlifting carry such a bad reputation for causing injuries?
In recent years, social media apps like TikTok, Twitter or Reddit will recommend videos which emphasize injuries, purely from how the algorithm functions. In turn this study has proven that social media has placed a burden on kids standards of realistic bodies and goals. This quick-consumption content that influencers will put out, really puts an out-of-context oversimplified narrative about youth fitness about how it’s pushing children to the extreme, whether its that your neck is as red as a tomato from your level of exertion or being so low body fat that all your muscle striations show. But this isn’t the only result of these short, quick-consumption videos, research has shown that exposure to this type of content, lowers attention span, lower motivation and overall self deprecation. All of these foster an environment where children develop unhealthy fitness standards and goals. Just piling on top of the confusion of lifting, fear increases and overexertion now being the main focal point of the viral content. Now a even more damaged picture is put into the minds of youth, showing them these dangerous techniques and practices when the opposite should be shown instead. But like it was previously stated it’s more deeply rooted than social media videos, this isn’t the only cause for this misconception to occur.
Historical attitudes and our longstanding societal standards have already placed an image in our heads about childhood health and exertion. For many decades, traditional medical advice that was given out by genuine pediatrics and doctors emphasized caution against any physical strenuous activity for children. A study showcased how it was common for this misconception to exist only due to previous decades of notions that went by unnoticed. This stemmed from an outdated assumption from a very old study, that was once widely accepted is completely disproven now, that growth plates could be injured from weightlifting. The other factor being a cultural norm that was placed without much say. Even as we get further into modern scientific studies that disprove it, many still outright forbid it for their children. This “legacy” or rather myth, is still hindering newer – more scientifically backed information to replace this ingrained misconception, but for now we can only showcase more evidence to prove otherwise.
In addition to our standards that have been upheld for so long, we can take a look at an even older one. When discussing why weightlifting is seen as bad for children, most people would already only be considering 50% of children. Of course gender roles have played a large role in which gender participates in what youth sport. With weightlifting being seen as predominantly a male activity before, involving strength and muscularity, it’s almost been “automatically” ruled out in so many peoples heads. Girls are typically steered toward for traditionally “feminine” activities like dancing or gymnastics, when in truth that the many studies showing overall muscle strength, tone and bone density increase, applies to both genders. This bias will contribute to the misconception that weightlifting is unsuitable to 50% of all children, when this isn’t even the only result of gender roles.
Old standards will in turn always play a role in how our society operates, clearly. Social media and older studies that were disproven will turn their heads to how most of our unconscious decisions are made. These two examples of social media and disproved studies show deeply ingrained societal attitudes towards a certain subject can persist, despite the modern day science proving otherwise. As we continue to advance our health and physical development we should aim to educate parents first so we can cause a chain effect on what’s taught to our children in the future.
References
American College of Sports Medicine (ACSM) blog (no date) ACSM_CMS. Available at: https://www.acsm.org/blog-detail/acsm-blog/2020/03/25/mythbusting-youth-resistance-training (Accessed: 10 November 2024).
American Psychological Association (APA) chief scientist outlines potential harms, benefits of social media for kids (no date a) American Psychological Association. Available at: https://www.apa.org/news/press/releases/2023/02/harms-benefits-social-media-kids (Accessed: 10 November 2024).
American Psychological Association (APA) chief scientist outlines potential harms, benefits of social media for kids (no date b) American Psychological Association. Available at: https://www.apa.org/news/press/releases/2023/02/harms-benefits-social-media-kids (Accessed: 10 November 2024).
Meur, Y.L. (2018) Youth resistance training, National Strength and Conditioning Association (NSCA). Available at: https://www.nsca.com/education/articles/infographics/youth-resistance-training/ (Accessed: 10 November 2024).
Myers, A.M., Beam, N.W. and Fakhoury, J.D. (2017) Resistance training for children and adolescents, Translational pediatrics. Available at: https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC5532191/ (Accessed: 10 November 2024).
Counterintuitive Fall 2024 
Sarcasm doesn’t persuade readers who are looking for helpful advice from a trusted source, ChefRat. Try to be that trusted source. Avoid claims like this one:
—I’m going to suggest that what reasonable parents and guardians worry about is not weightlifting in a sanctioned program but kids who decide to self-administer a lifting regimen. You do yourself no favors by insulting those with reasonable concerns.
—It’s also possible that the very nature of deliberately stressing the body with very heavy weights creates a fear that is not completely assuaged by promises that the activities will be supervised.
—You haven’t demonstrated that anyone is MORE worried about kids lifting weights than they are about kids doing complicated dismounts from gymnastics equipment. If you had, your “comparative safety” arguments would be more compelling.
—Precisely right. Responsible adults are right to worry about injuries with or without proper supervision (especially without), so credit them for their concern without critiquing them for wanting to know what a “weightlifting certification” amounts to.
Apparently you’re referring to an internet phenomenon with which YOU are very familiar but which might be entirely unknown to your readers (such as me). It will make little sense to a reader who hasn’t seen the videos you reference. Put yourself in the place of such a reader and judge for yourself what you would make of this:
This needs a paragraph of its own:
If you want to broaden your critique of these videos BEYOND the way they misinform the public about the supposed dangers of lifting, that’s fine, but START with how they ADD TO INJURY. That’s the cleanest comparison you have to make: Proper understanding of lifting procedures is BENEFICIAL AND NOT DANGEROUS while the misinformation spread by amateur videos results in DANGEROUS TECHNIQUE AND PRACTICES.
You’ve been doing excellent work on your paper so far, ChefRat, so please accept my critiques as constructive. I’m sure you’ll be able to improve on your draft considerably now that I’ve drawn a few things to your attention.
Put this post into Regrade Please or back into Feedback Please or both following any significant improvements.
Your Introduction is vastly improved. Let’s look together at the second paragraph, where I made some formatting changes to your text including isolating an entire section in the middle into a “Block Quote.”
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Section 1. Proper supervision and technique are essential in every [other] sport we teach our children, and weightlifting is no different. However its widespread and mainstream concern stems from the misconceptions that are tagged alongside it, rather than any evidence that points towards it. [Other] parents or guardians who have [more] reasonable concerns about unsupervised, self implemented weightlifting do have reason to be worried, but in reality they should be MORE concerned the same children applying the same to the more common youth sports like soccer or American football.
Section 3. Studies performed by The American Academy of Pediatrics show that youth injuries in weightlifting are primarily caused by improper form, lack of supervision, and strength-inappropriate/skill-inappropriate use of weights for the child. When weightlifting’s factors are properly managed by a youth certified trainer (or anyone with a strong understanding of youth physiology), children will not only avoid injuries but ACHIEVE positive growth results. The NSCA has proper guidelines, that with a proper amount of supervision will result in positive strength, ligament, and coordination improvements. Despite the data showing that with the same supervision, and amount of hours in other youth sports, that rate of injury completely tramples the risk of weightlifting. Weightlifting is 2545x less likely to result in injury. But what is it about weightlifting (which has lower rates of injury) that will make it stick out compared to other youth sports?
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In Section 1, please note the words inside brackets [brackets]. You want to identify ALL parents as reasonably concerned so SOME can be MORE reasonably concerned than others. That’s why you treat them all first, the same (without calling them OTHER).
The bold line is just really confusing. Something went wrong with your grammar
Section 2 intrudes on your paragraph and certainly does not belong where you put it. It’s also unclear what it means to “comment” on one sort of injury more readily than another. And finally, the last sentence makes an odd claim that some sorts of injuries are acceptable, and then ends before the grammar says it should. Very messy.
Section 3 is pretty clean except for the bold material, which is very confusing.
—The “Despite” bit is just the wrong logical setup for what follows.
—You must mean “people have the wrong idea” DESPITE the evidence, but you don’t mention people’s perceptions in the rest of your sentence, so we get completely lost.
—I suggest you lead off with “Weightlifting is 2545x less likely to result in injury than other youth sports.
—THEN, if you want, you can transition to the claim that DESPITE THAT EVIDENCE, people have the wrong idea.
—Finally, “make it stick out” sends no clear value message. I think you mean “Why, despite its proven safety record, does weightlifting have such a bad reputation for causing injuries?”
Take if from there, ChefRat.
I’ll give you a Provisional Regrade based on improvements I’ve seen so far and leave it to you to pursue even more regrading after you work on that second paragraph (which is probably at least 2 paragraphs, perhaps 3 depending on what you do with that little intrusive “scrolling through videos” section).
Hi Professor,
All of my revisions I made today (11.23.24) were Bolded for clarity and ease of reading!
Section 1
Section 2
Section 3
Those changes are significant.
Regraded.