fractures

There is good news and bad news on the youth sports injury front. The good news is that sports and recreation musculoskeletal injuries declined 12.4 percent in the U.S. over the past 10 years for children ages 5 to 14 years. The bad news: injuries in football and soccer went up, says a new study.

Baseball and softball are among the most popular and safest sports in which children and adolescents participate in the United States, says an updated policy statement from the American Academy of Pediatrics.

Disordered eating, skipped periods (amenorrhea) and repeated bone instability or fractures are the three signs of the athletic triad. Unlike teens with anorexia nervosa or bulimia, teens are maintaining a low body weight because they exercise too much and don't eat enough to keep up with their activity.