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As cheerleading gets competitive, a Kansas City doctor wants to make it safer from concussions

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Guest Columnist
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A Kansas City doctor and the American Academy of Pediatrics have issued a report analyzing the unique injury risks in cheerleading and how to improve safety for the first time in over a decade. They’re calling for a series of changes, including broad recognition of cheerleading as a sport.

It’s late on a Tuesday night in December and a handful of cheerleaders are ironing out their routine at Triple Threat KC, a gym in Lenexa.

The gym’s advanced team is preparing for competitions later this month: one in Sedalia where they’ll square off against 75 teams, and another in Kansas City featuring more than 100 teams. They’re working on new stunts — aerial maneuvers that involve jumping, tumbling and tossing cheerleaders into the air — in hopes of winning.

Despite those ambitions, Charles Moore, the gym’s owner and coach, wants to make sure his athletes don’t put success over safety.

He says a good stunt can look incredibly complex, but if he breaks it down step by step — he compares it to a Lego set — it helps kids understand what the movement is supposed to look and feel like when they stick the landing.

For each person someone hoists into the air — the flyer — there is at least one back spotter, often a coach.

“If I can get somebody to practice something in a safe environment where they know they aren’t going to get injured they’ll give full effort to the technique,” Moore says. “It’s when they don’t feel safe when they try to get it over as fast as possible.”

Cheerleading is the fastest-growing female sport in the country. Most of the 3.5 million kids participating are girls between the ages of six and 17. The Kansas City metro has more than a dozen all-star cheer gyms, and most schools have some sort of cheer team.

What was once a grounded, male-dominant activity meant to energize school spirit through chants has grown to be incredibly athletic and complex. That’s why, for the first time in over a decade, doctors with the American Academy of Pediatrics have issued a report analyzing the unique injury risks in cheerleading and how to improve safety.

Dr. Gregory Canty of Children’s Mercy Hospital in Kansas City co-authored the November statement by the American Academy of Pediatrics released. In his medical practice, Canty treats cheerleading patients every day. He’s seen concussions, broken bones and catastrophic injuries.

“Because of that risk, we need to do everything we can as parents, as physicians and as a community to continue to make the sport safer,” Canty says.

Conflicting data

Overall, considering the rapid growth of the sport, Canty and his co-authors say there’s been a decrease in the rate of injuries for female cheerleaders.

Their report suggests the overall rate of injury in cheerleading is two to three times lower than in girls’ soccer or basketball, for example. But cheerleading injuries, particularly concussions, can be especially severe and have a prolonged recovery time.

Stunting is 70% of the concussions reported in high school cheerleading, according to the report. And concussions suffered during cheerleading practice rank third behind boys’ football and wrestling practices.

“Cheer appears to be one of the safer sports from the places we got data, but there is data that suggest when cheerleaders do get injured the risk of a serious injury is there,” Canty says. “Some of those can be things like concussions, fractures, dislocations, those types of injuries. You have to be alert to those types of things that could keep you away for more than a couple of weeks.”

Canty notes one big change is concussion recognition, and that could be why there are a greater number of concussions reported now than in the previous report in 2012. But Canty also says data reporting on the sport isn’t great.

There’s no database where all gyms and schools report cheer injuries, so collection can be piecemeal. That’s something to consider when reviewing overall rates, says Kimberly Archie, a founder of the National Cheerleading Safety Foundation – established by former coaches, cheerleaders and their parents.

And sometimes, injuries might be mislabeled as gymnastics-related because of the similarities in some of the moves, Archie says.

She points to other research done in collaboration with the National Center for Catastrophic Sports Injury Research that suggests the number of catastrophic injuries sustained by cheerleaders is greater than the sum of all female athletes playing other high school or college sports combined.

“It’s prevalent, it’s been normalized and it’s causing a health epidemic in cheerleading,” Archie says. “Cheerleaders aren’t just at risk of arthritis or knee problems, but to have brain health issues for the rest of their life.”

Brittany Poinson at Children’s Hospital New Orleans reports seeing “quite a few cheerleaders for persistent post-concussion symptoms,” according to reporting by NPR.

But USA Cheer, an organization overseeing safety regulations recognized by various Olympic committees, says those metrics are outdated and there have been great strides in addressing these injury concerns in the past few decades.

Nearly twenty years ago, several of the sport’s governing bodies changed requirements for the basket toss. That’s when a team of people whose hands are interlocked launches a cheerleader into the air.

A study on catastrophic injuries later found that making sure teams did the move on absorbent surfaces, like grass or rubber mats, made it four times safer over the next decade.

Overcoming bias and finding a path forward

Canty says other changes would make the sport even safer.

A major step would be state associations and high school athletic departments overseeing and formally recognizing cheerleading as a sport.

“It would solidify cheerleader’s access to trained individuals, to making sure they have athletic trainers that are available, they have strength and conditioning personnel,” Canty says. “All those things kind of open up.”

Canty says this would also help improve injury reporting and data collection.

Kansas and Missouri already list cheer as a sport under their high school athletic associations. But Archie says cheer must also be recognized under Title IX – the federal law that prohibits sex discrimination and ensures students in educational settings are treated equally.

Without that, Archie says, school teams don’t feel any real legal pressure to abide by regulations. That includes having an emergency action plan, which the AAP report says should be commonplace and clearly posted in all schools and gyms.

“Think about the janitor at the school district,” she says. “If they get up on a ladder above six feet, they need a fall protection plan. High school cheerleaders often do acrobatics and tumbling above six feet and they don’t have a fall protection plan.”

Archie knows this from firsthand experience. Her daughter broke an arm at cheerleading practice, and there was no plan in place for getting her help.

One roadblock to Title IX and broad recognition is a bias against cheerleading, Archie says. Depending on your age or exposure to the sport, you might still see it as the pom-pom-waving sport it was decades ago. It’s also the only sport with its own category on PornHub, Archie says.

“When I say that people are pretty taken aback, but it affects how seriously people take this issue,” she says.

Another roadblock is the organizations charged with oversight of the sport. While USA Cheer supports high schools and colleges recognizing and regulating the sport, it does not support placing cheerleading under Title IX. USA Cheer and Varsity Spirit, an organization that helped create USA Cheer and holds a near monopoly over the sport — have routinely opposed Title IX certification in court.

Jim Lord, USA Cheer’s director of education and programs, says that’s because under Title IX, teams should be competitive in nature and not every sport is.

“In Missouri and in Kansas they have requirements for training either for their coaches, the same types of training that other sports coaches have to follow,” Lord says. “They provide opportunities for competition, but also they make them follow the safety rules and they do that without being necessarily a Title IX type of sport.”

Many teams are also uneasy about speaking on the issue. Out of eight teams KCUR contacted around the Kansas City metro, only Triple Threat KC responded.

Lord says that’s because of media scrutiny unfairly characterizing the issue. Archie, however, says she suspects organizations like Varsity and USA Cheer want to keep the problems quiet.

Ground level changes

In its policy statement, the AAP also calls for physical health screenings for prospective athletes. Lord says USA Cheer supports all the recommendations in the report.

Many of them, such as physicals and an emergency action plan, are already suggested by USA Cheer. But they are just recommendations. Lord says the organization has its own safety council made up of doctors, trainers, surgeons and other experts who review new data yearly to make necessary changes.

They will meet in February to go over the rules for high school and in April for college.

“We’ll be bringing all those things together to see if there are rules out there we have been allowing that we have a concern about and whether we need to address those through education or if we’ve done that, to make a rule change,” Lord says.

With large-scale changes such as Title IX recognition unlikely to happen in the immediate future, individual gyms and schools can still institute things like an action plan to help keep more kids out of Dr. Canty’s clinic at Children’s Mercy.

At Triple Threat KC, Moore requires all cheerleaders to get a physical before they join the gym. And he is especially particular about concussions.

“We have a concussion protocol so that a way we can check the symptoms of a concussion and if I deem it a light to moderate concussion, we’re shutting it down,” he says. “It’s not worth the risk. The brain is a significant organ and we want to make sure it’s working at all times so we’re gonna shut it down.”

Kansas News Service

Corn Chowder

By
Debbie Dance Uhrig
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With the tremendous dip in temperatures it seems only appropriate to feature a hearty soup this week. I chose not to run the broccoli cheese recipe I made this evening for my family. The men at our household gave it a nice thumbs up, so will see about featuring it in the weeks to come. Corn Chowder is one of my favorite soups especially when it’s super cold outside. Compared to my friends back in Lewis County, Missouri I have it pretty easy with weather, just super cold and freezing drizzle.

Let’s jump in and look at several of the ingredients. And, you guessed it, look at how we can personally modify. I think the first subject should be the cheese of choice. Swiss is about the lowest sodium cheese you can consume. However since ‘smoked’ was used there may be additional nitrates and sodium within.

Smoke flavoring may not appeal to every cook. If it doesn’t, eliminate smoked cheese all together. In its place use Farmer’s Cheese or mild cheddar. Actually I was afraid to label the recipe, ‘Smoked Corn Chowder’. Knowing that not everyone enjoys smoked taste, I felt it might keep some from trying the recipe.

I would say 90% of the time I smoke my own cheese for cooking use.

Corn, me oh my, if its summertime and corn season use fresh corn in this dish. Don’t worry about the creamed corn, instead use about 3-4 cups of regular fresh corn, cut from the cob.

Red Peppers/Onions: If you have a garden full of green peppers I wouldn’t hesitate to use them. On the onion I like a sweet white onion, but a finally diced red would be so bad either. The red onion would definitely bring in color.

Dairy: If using half and half is too many calories, return to only milk and no cream. However there will be a taste and creamy difference.

You will notice there is a small amount of salt added to the recipe directly. If you do not use salt free chicken stock it would be best to eliminate the additional salt.

Pepper, you want to use black instead of ground white, go for it!

Kielbasa sausage: I think the recipe is best with kielbasa, but if there’s still a bit of Easter ham hiding out in your deep freezer, this would be a good place to implement. With the kielbasa you will find various flavors, nice particularly if you have people with special dietary needs. For those who like a spicier approach to the soup, you’ll easily find jalapeno kielbasa.

As you approach the slurry, there are two different choices. I like my chowder with some body, but not too much. If you lean the other direction go with the four tablespoons, for the slurry. Phillip, our son, was pulled into the completion of this recipe, and he likes it ‘very’ thick. Because the chowder is so strong on ingredients, I prefer only 3 tablespoons. You call it here!

What’s a slurry? Any time you thicken you use either a wet slurry or a dry slurry. When you make sausage gravy it’s usually a dry slurry. This would be when you work the flour into the meat, before adding the milk.

When I was growing up my mother tended to make very ‘thin’ soups. Any time I made a soup for my dad, after mother’s passing ,he would make comments about it being too thick! It’s so amusing to me how our childhood affects how we develop as adults. I hated the thin soups, so I always filled mine with crackers galore, something my husband, Ervin, continually hounds me about. I also don’t make very many thin soups, except for a nice consume or chicken noodle. All based on my dislike for all the thin soups. I remember my brother Greg asking mom to make chili thick enough a spoon would stand up! She did it too, to please both Greg and myself.

I’ve commented many times about how our eras can affect the way we cook. Parents who experienced the depression, bring so many different things to the kitchen, less sugar in their baked goods, thinner soups, and at my home, no cheese!

Cold weather or not let’s have a great week and enjoy the presence of those around us. Simply yours, The Covered Dish.

Corn Chowder

2 tablespoons butter

1/2 cup – 1 cup finely chopped onion

1 red pepper, chopped small

2-3 stalks celery, finely chopped, (optional)

1 can regular corn, drained

1 lb. kielbasa or ham of your choice

(Cut kielbasa rounds in half, then slice-)

3 cups chicken stock, (salt-free was used)

3 large potatoes

3 tablespoons dry parsley

1/2 teaspoon thyme

3/4 teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon ground white pepper

1 can creamed corn

1 cup milk

1 1/2 cups half and half

1 cup smoked Swiss cheese, cut into small cubes

3-4 tablespoons flour

1/2 cup additional half and half for wet slurry

Serves 6 portions as a main entree or 12 as the first course.

Saute onion, red pepper and optional celery in butter. When tender add corn and lightly saute. Stir in sliced kielbasa (chunks of ham may be substituted) and continue stirring. Dice 3 large potatoes into small pieces. I left the skin/jackets on, proceed as you prefer. Add 3 cups of stock and potatoes to the stockpot.

Also bring in salt, pepper, thyme and dry parsley. Bring mixture to a boil and then reduce heat until potatoes are tender; when soft introduce the creamed corn.

Add 1 cup of milk and 1 1/2 cups of half and half. Lastly stir in the smoked Swiss cheese. Keep over medium/medium low heat. Stir frequently to keep chowder from getting too hot and to get the cheese melted. When the contents are pretty warm prepare the slurry with the flour and additional half and half. Whisk or blend until no lumps appear. Pour into warm soup to thicken.

Serve with crackers, green onions or parsley on top.

My family gave this great reviews this past weekend. Be sure and read additional comments about this recipe, inside the column dialogue.

KU research suggests wind power isn’t a red vs. blue issue in Kansas

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Guest Columnist
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New wind installations aren’t allowed in about one-fifth of Kansas counties, in part to protect the nation’s last, largest swath of tallgrass prairie.

Wind power can spark passionate reactions – at times dividing neighbors and communities – but unlike many other hot-button topics, how this one shakes out across Kansas may not follow political lines.

Researchers at the University of Kansas have begun exploring the drivers behind the regulations that vary county by county and control where wind farms are – and aren’t – allowed.

They’ve created a first-of-its-kind interactive atlas that pulls together rules for the state’s 105 counties, creating “a real gold mine” for analysts to plumb in search of patterns, urban planning associate professor Ward Lyles said.

That gold mine will get richer in the coming weeks, when the Kansas Energy Transition Atlas expands to include local solar regulations. After that, the team will expand the project to additional states with significant wind energy potential.

The atlas appears to be the first time this level of transparency has become available for local rules across an entire state.

Kansas ranks No. 4 nationally in terms of wind production.

Just over half of the state’s counties either tolerate or encourage wind development through local regulations. Often they have rules for how far turbines must be set back from roads or buildings.

New wind farms are banned in about one-fifth of the state’s counties. Much of this relates to bipartisan, state-level decisions to protect a swath of eastern Kansas that includes the Flint Hills – the world’s largest remaining tallgrass prairie region.

County-level decisions also play a role in restricting wind power, in the Flint Hills and beyond. Shawnee, Linn, McPherson, Harvey and Sedgwick counties, for example, have adopted moratoriums on new installations.

Some Kansas counties – primarily in the western half of the state – haven’t taken any action to either restrict or encourage wind power.

The creators of the atlas hope to give residents a reliable place to check how renewable energy is regulated, including setback rules and other details.

They also hope to inform policymakers about the local regulatory landscape that impacts the nation’s efforts to reduce its emissions, said Ian Njuguna, an urban planning master’s student who helped design the atlas and built the online platform.

“The planning regulations and the grid network are the biggest barriers” to achieving federal goals for a cleaner power grid, Njuguna said. “But then when you ask the policymakers, ‘OK, how is the local (regulatory) landscape?’ most of them don’t know what’s happening down there.”

The Biden administration set several key targets aimed at eliminating the U.S. economy’s net emissions by 2050. This included a goal of transitioning the power grid to 100% “clean energy” by 2035. (The administration included renewable energy, nuclear power and fossil fuels paired with carbon capture in this definition.)

County commissions have more sway over renewable energy installations than other forms of power generation, such as coal or nuclear power.

But building a complete picture of local regulations isn’t easy.

A team of faculty and students spent one to three hours per county to find and review wind power regulations. Some counties post this information online; others don’t, requiring researchers to contact officials.

Solar regulation is arguably even more complex because cities can get involved, too.

“At the city level, you find the solar regulations are more for lower-scale solar projects,” such as backyard or rooftop panels, Njuguna said. “At the county level, it’s more like the utility scale.”

Though time-intensive, gathering this information allows researchers to explore correlations between local renewable energy rules and demographics, including income and politics.

County regulations don’t appear to reflect partisan politics, Lyles said. The team looked at voting patterns in the 2020 national elections.

Counties with mid-sized populations appear more likely to pass rules allowing wind power, while counties with larger populations are more likely to pass rules that limit or ban it, the researchers found.

Lyles said wind installations may meet with more opposition in places like Shawnee, Douglas and Johnson counties and along Interstate 135 in central Kansas, while residents of some less populous counties may see turbines as a potential boon to the local economy that could help farmers “either graze or plow around that and keep a farm in the family.”

Landowners can collect thousands of dollars in annual payments for each wind turbine that they host on their property. One farm real estate company says the average turbine payment in Iowa is $9,000 per year, but it has seen per-turbine payments that vary from $4,000 to $16,000.

Bigger turbines tend to bring bigger payments.

New wind farms use taller turbines than older ones do. As of last year, about one-tenth of the 4,000 wind turbines in Kansas were taller than the Statue of Liberty.

Kansas News Service ksnewsservice.org.

“Let’s Get Moving!”

By
Guest Columnist
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As we start the New Year, many people are making resolutions and setting goals for the next 12 months. One of the most common resolutions is to be more active. At Prairie Doc, we want all of our viewers to be both healthy and happy. This week, On Call with the Prairie Doc will be showcasing different ways people can incorporate movement into their lives. There is truly something for everyone.

Personally, I’ve explored a variety of activities with varying levels of success and competence. Regardless of the activity, what has made many of these experiences memorable and enjoyable are the people I have met along the way. Some of my most cherished friendships have formed through shared activities, proving to be just as beneficial to my mental health as any physical benefits of the activity itself.

Let me share some of the more unusual ways that I’ve stayed active throughout my life. In fourth grade, I joined the wrestling team. I became the first girl in my school to do so. I was not particularly good, ending the season with a 1-11 record. However, I was proud of myself for trying. By sixth grade, two other girls joined the team with me.

In junior high I tried volleyball, and while I loved, but was not very skilled. The place I did excel in was taekwondo. I started when I was ten and earned my 3rd degree black belt while in college. When I was in medical school, I still found time for activities and needed to try things that were the complete opposite of my school work. I tried rock climbing, belly dancing, and fencing. All activities that were outside my comfort zone, but quickly became welcome breaks from studying.

In Brookings, we are blessed with a multitude of activities in the area to try. I have participated in an adult kickball league. I have also started curling with the Brookings Curling Club. This game involves not only skill and strategy but a little bit of luck. On Prairie Doc, viewers will get to see me doing my favorite exercise activity, aerial silks. My medical residency training was in Baraboo, Wisconsin, the home town of the Ringling Brothers. I always loved the circus and aerial silks allows me to feel like I have joined the circus, if only for a few moments.

Finding the right activity may take some trial and error, but once you find something you love it will be worth it. So, as you set your goals for the coming year, consider trying something completely different. You may just discover an activity that brings you joy and a new community of friends along the way. Until next time, Stay healthy and active out there!

Jill Kruse, D.O. is part of The Prairie Doc® team of physicians and currently practices as a hospitalist in Brookings, South Dakota. Follow The Prairie Doc® at www.prairiedoc.org and on Facebook, Instagram, and Threads featuring On Call with the Prairie Doc®, a medical Q&A show on SDPB, 2 podcasts, and a Radio program, providing health information based on science, built on trust, streaming live on Facebook most Thursdays at 7 p.m. central and wherever podcast can be found.

Mass deportations could endanger Kansas’ meat economy: ‘It would be a ghost town’

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Guest Columnist
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The price of beef is at all-time highs, but a major policy initiative of the incoming Trump Administration could drive them higher. In an industry that’s already strapped for workers, mass deportations could put some ranchers and feedlots out of business.

Raising cattle is tough. Nearly every day, Kansas ranchers and feedlot operators have to wrestle with drought, disease or blizzards. But the biggest problem is labor — the industry is chronically short-handed. That is especially true in southwest Kansas.

“If the immigrants weren’t there to help out, there wouldn’t be an operation functional in any of those places,” said Micheal Feltman, an immigration attorney in Cimarron, Kansas, just west of Dodge City.

Feltman helps the feedlots and mega dairy farms near there find workers. He said people funneling into southwest Kansas, from at least 40 countries, are the lifeblood of the beef industry and the regional economy.

Close to half the people who process meat in the U.S. were born someplace else, and immigrants do much of the work feeding and tending animals. Most of these workers are here legally, but a significant percentage aren’t, and documented immigrants often support close family members living with them illegally.

That’s why President-elect Donald Trump’s promises of a sweeping crackdown on immigration, sealing the border, and deporting 11 million people have many people in the meat industry worried.

Mass deportations would trigger a cascade of hardships across the chronically short-staffed meat industry, Feltman said. Processing plants would slow down, causing meat shortages that economists worry would drive consumer prices to record highs. Farmers would find themselves with more livestock than they could sell or care for, and the value of their animals would plummet.

“If every immigrant … over the last 20 years disappeared immediately, it would be a ghost town,” Feltman said. “I don’t know how the businesses would survive.”

The beef industry runs on imported labor

For one recent Haitian immigrant, who said she was afraid to divulge her name because she fled hunger and horrific violence at home, the stakes seem like life and death. The woman and her 4-year-old daughter made their way to Garden City three months ago. They’re here on temporary humanitarian parole. That gives her two years to apply for asylum.

She’s still waiting to be granted a work permit, but said she’d be willing to do any kind of labor, including the dangerous, uncomfortable, smelly jobs at the Tyson packing plant on the outskirts of town. Through an interpreter, she said she’s following the letter of the law to stay in the U.S., and has an appointment for a screening that should clear the way for her work visa, and financial independence.

“It will bring me a lot of joy,” she said. “Because I have a kid to take care of, I have myself, and if I could invest in the country, it would bring me a lot of joy.”

Given Trump’s rhetoric during the election and since, she now fears she’ll be sent back to the violent chaos in Haiti instead of joining a workforce that badly needs her.

“It’s not safe. The gangs are killing people,” she said.

The complicated immigration system doesn’t allow in enough legal immigrants to make up the difference, so some companies turn to undocumented workers to get by.

University of Arkansas economist Jada Thompson said mass deportations would exacerbate the problem, sending shockwaves up and down the meat supply chain. For one thing, deporting meat-packing workers would slow down the plants, triggering shortages.

“I think we’re going to see higher prices (for) the retail (customer),” said Thompson.

But farmers wouldn’t see any gains from soaring retail prices, she said, because there would be too many animals in the system for the meat processors to use, a glut building daily as more pigs and cows mature.

“I think you’ll end up eventually seeing lower prices (for) farmers,” said Thompson, “because it will eventually be oversupply because, effectively, they just can’t harvest that many animals.”

Thompson said the same thing happened a few years ago, but it wasn’t an immigration crackdown causing the labor shortage — it was the COVID pandemic.

“And what happened in that supply chain?” Thompson asked. “It backed it up. Prices went up. All of a sudden, you had people with pigs and cows that could not go to market because there was nowhere for them to be slaughtered.”

Those animals still had to be fed, and they still needed space to live in, but nobody wanted to buy them for meat, meaning farmers were spending extra money every day to keep more pigs and cows alive. Eventually, some farmers had to cut their losses, shoot their livestock and bury it. Everybody loses.

Kansas State University economist Glynn Tonsor said losses like those would spread broadly through southwest Kansas towns that depend on big feedlots, dairies and packing houses.

“They very often are one of the largest employers and local tax generators, so there’s relevant implications for funding of schools, funding of libraries, funding of anything you want to talk about that’s publicly funded in local areas,” said Tonsor.

It’s not clear yet how Trump administration deportations will work, if they happen at all, but Kansas Livestock Association CEO Matt Teagarden hopes they move slowly, and that they somehow shield the immigrant-dependent meat industry.

Teagarden said he believes border security should be tightened, but he’d like the system of granting work visas streamlined, not shackled. It’s either import people or import food.

“One of the alternatives is our food production goes overseas or moves outside the country,” said Teagarden. “If we don’t have an adequate workforce, can’t produce the food that we all want each day, each week, each month, that food production will go elsewhere.”

 

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