consensus (note: this isn’t in the linked article) seems to be that sports with a lot of hard physical contact, like rugby or boxing, are bad enough for you to overcome the general benefits of exercise.
This based on any evidence, or is this just fashion?
Can’t be bothered to dig up a reference, but boxing and American football at the very least are pretty unambiguously unhealthy: repeated concussions do nasty dementia-like things to your brain, and the incidence rates are surprisingly high (I think the phrase to google is “chronic traumatic encephalopathy”). I also wouldn’t be surprised if the kind of joint problems that contact sports tend to give you led to mobility problems and attendant issues later in life, although that’s a little more speculative.
This based on any evidence, or is this just fashion?
Can’t be bothered to dig up a reference, but boxing and American football at the very least are pretty unambiguously unhealthy: repeated concussions do nasty dementia-like things to your brain, and the incidence rates are surprisingly high (I think the phrase to google is “chronic traumatic encephalopathy”). I also wouldn’t be surprised if the kind of joint problems that contact sports tend to give you led to mobility problems and attendant issues later in life, although that’s a little more speculative.