Participation in after school activities and community sports has become increasingly popular. With kids heading back to school, many children will be signing up for sports for the first time.

From softball to skateboarding, sport participation can lead to injury. For many sports, protective gear and safety lessons are the first steps to ensure an injury-free school year.

The American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons (AAOS) stresses the importance of protective gear while engaging in a particularly new phenomenon … heeling. Heelys — also known as roller shoes or street gliders — are shoes that have a wheel on the heel. These types of shoes fall into the category of inline skates which qualifies them as a sport, and carries warnings for their use including wearing protective gear such as wrist guards and helmets to avoid injuries.

According to James H. Beaty, MD, a pediatric orthopedic surgeon and president of AAOS, “Orthopaedic surgeons are in fact seeing children come into their practices with injuries due to Heeleys, mostly of a fracture-type within the hand, wrist or elbow.”

For a child to maneuver in roller shoes, they merely shift their body weight backward over the heels, the wheels then engage and cause a change from walking to rolling. “As these shoes are sold in department stores, parents buying them may develop a false sense of security — that they are like any other shoe,” says Beaty.

“Roller shoes are very similar to being on roller blades or inline skates and protective gear should be worn at all times. If children are to ‘heel,’ it should not be done while going down a hill, over a curb or over rocky areas,” continues Beaty.

Once kids have mastered safe heeling, they may want to wear them to school. Some schools have banned Heelys from being worn on school grounds during the school day, but if school is within walking distance, and they’re used with the proper safety precautions, Heelys can be a great way for kids to get to school. Just be sure they bring another pair of shoes to change into.

Injuries can be avoided if safety precautions are remembered. Below are a few safety tips for those that take up wheeled-shoe sports:

* Learn the basic skills of the sport; particularly how to stop properly, before venturing out.
* Wear a helmet, wrist protectors and knee and elbow pads.
* Avoid rolling in crowded walkways.
* Avoid rolling in traffic. If you come to a cross walk, obey traffic signals, stay to the right side of the sidewalk and don’t weave in and out of crowds.
* Heel on smooth surfaces, away from traffic.
* Do not let a young child heel unsupervised.

Before heading out to buy wheeled shoes, keep the following in mind:

* Do not buy roller shoes that put too much pressure on any area of your foot; the pressure can cause blisters.
* Choose the shoe size at the end of the day when feet will be their largest.
* When selecting the size of the roller shoe, wear the same type of sock that will be worn when heeling.

For more information about preventing injuries, visit www.orthinfo.org.

Courtesy of ARAcontent

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