Cheerleader Girls Then And Now

Out of the United States' 2.9 million female high school athletes, only 3% are cheerleaders, yet cheerleading accounts for 65% of all catastrophic injuries in girls' high school athletics. Since the NCAA has yet to recognize cheerleading as an official college sport, there are no solid numbers on college cheerleading, yet when it comes to injuries, 67% of female athlete injuries at the college level are due to cheerleading mishaps. LiveScience.com recaps new evidence showing that the most dangerous sport for high school and college females is cheerleading: Another study found that between 1982 and 2007, there were 103 fatal, disabling or serious injuries recorded among female high school athletes, with the vast majority (67) occurring in cheerleading.
In the early 2000s, cheerleading was considered one of the most dangerous school activities. The main source of injuries comes from stunting, also known as pyramids. These stunts are performed at games and pep rallies, as well as competitions. Sometimes competition routines are focused solely around the use of difficult and risky stunts. These stunts usually include a flyer (the person on top), along with one or two bases (the people on the bottom) and, one or two spotters in the front and back on the bottom. The most common cheerleading related injuries are: sprained ankles, sprained wrists, back injuries, head injuries (sometimes concussions), broken arms, elbow injuries, knee injuries, broken noses, and broken collarbones.
The journal Pediatrics has reportedly said that the number of cheerleaders suffering from broken bones, concussions, and sprains has increased by over 100 percent between the years of 1990 and 2002, and that in 2001 there were 25,000 hospital visits reported for cheerleading injuries dealing with the shoulder, ankle, head, and neck. Meanwhile, in the USA, cheerleading accounted for 65.1% of all major sports injuries to high school females, and to 66.7% of major sports injuries to college students from 1982 to 2007, with 22,900 minors being admitted to hospital with cheerleading-related injuries in 2002.
In October 2009, the American Association of Cheerleading Coaches and Advisors (AACCA), a subsidiary of Varsity Brands, released a study that analyzed the data from Emergency Room visits of all high school athletes. The study asserted that contrary to many perceptions, cheerleading injuries are in line with other female sports. Cheerleading has been added to the list of sports being studied by Dr. Dawn Comstock of Ohio State University through the high school Injury Surveillance System.