Intensive sport can negatively impact the growth of children

The pediatrician Marcello Bergamini: "Attention to physical and psychological development and the appearance of pathologies and eating disorders"

ROME – “InFlorence we talked about the importance of intensive level sporting activity that some children, still at a premature, precocious age, carry out at intensive quality levels This is a fact that can have a negative impact or in any case need to be evaluated in a scientific manner on some important functions regarding their growth, physical development, psychological development, the possible appearance of pathologies at the level of the osteoarticular system. , menstrual cycle disorders, eating disorders and behavioral disorders in general“. This was explained by Marcello Bergamini, pediatrician in Ferrara, interviewed by Dire on the occasion of theXXVI National Congress of the Italian Society of Preventive and Social Paediatrics (Sipps), which ends today at Palazzo degli Affari of the Tuscan capital.
“They are children still in the developmental phase – he continued – who are subjected to really important workloads, often inappropriate in relation to their age“.

“The family pediatrician – he then wanted to inform – must be aware that this problem affects approximately 3-5% of his child population but that it has a considerable impact It must therefore be able to constantly monitor the growth, development, sexual and reproductive function of these children and young girls, up to adulthood“.
The words of Marcello Bergamini arrived on the sidelines of the presentation of the Consensus ‘Children and adolescents who practice sports’. “During the Congress – he concluded – we talked about this inter-society Consensus which will concern 12 key questions, relating to the possible impact of intensive level sporting activity, not only on the physical performance of children but also on important pathologies. We therefore focused on the focus on important health outcomes, not just on physiological or pathophysiological anomalies that can be studied”.