I am losing my Hulu subscription in 3 days and was looking for things to watch and although I can't stand Penn because of his foul mouth, I am all about the way he exposes myths. So I looked through the episode titles and picked out 18 of the 89 available ones that piqued my curiosity. I was all prepared to believe the one on Organic foods was the best and then I watched this one last and it blew that one out of first place. I was not even going to write a review of the Organic Foods one.
"Cheerleaders" would be more accurately titled "Cheerleading" since it isn't about cheerleaders as much as it is about the corporate body of cheerleading as a whole. The episode is focused on how cheerleading is not designated as a "sport" under Title 9 and how that specific issue leaves girls vulnerable to risk of injury, and that risk is far greater than what the general public has any clue. The statistics sited are mind boggling: Cheerleaders accounted for 30,000 ER visits in 2009, more than all other 10 sports combined: Soccer, Basketball, Softball, Gymnastics, Lacrosse, Track & Field, Volleyball, Swimming, Field Hockey, and Ice Hockey.
If Cheerleading was given "sport" status, it would be regulated by the individual states, have coaches who were properly trained and certified in health, safety, first aid, CPR, etc. , have the proper medical equipment and risk/injury prevention apparatus on site (like spotters) and these injuries would be not only less likely to occur, but far less serious when they do. The motivations from those who want to keep cheerleading from being designated a sport are the same ones you might guess: profit and control.
America is sending their little girls off to cheerleading camps at very young ages and watching them grow up in the ranks as cheerleaders doing stunts requiring an extreme level of difficulty and athleticism and with coaches who have no more than a 3 hour training class on a Saturday morning. Its egregious.
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