Abstract
Background
Professional American-style football players are among the largest athletes across
contemporary sporting disciplines. Weight gain during football participation is common,
but the health implications of this early-life weight gain remain incompletely understood.
We sought to define weight trajectories of former professional American-style football
athletes and to establish their relationship with 5 common health afflictions (cardiovascular
disease, cardiometabolic disease, neurocognitive impairment, sleep apnea, and chronic
pain).
Methods
A health survey was distributed to former National Football League (NFL) players.
Former players reported body weight at 4 time points (high school, college, professional,
and time of survey response) as well as maximal retirement weight. Logistic regression
was used to assess associations between weight gain during football participation
and health affliction.
Results
In this cohort of former NFL players (n = 3,506, age 53 ± 14 years), mean weight increase
from high school to time of survey response was 40 ± 36 pounds, with the majority
of weight gain occurring during periods of football participation (high-school-to-college
and college-to-professional). The prevalence of health afflictions ranged from 9%
(cardiovascular disease) to 28% (chronic pain). Weight gain during football participation
was independently associated with risk of multiple later-life health afflictions in
models adjusted for football exposure, lifestyle variables, and post-career weight
gain.
Conclusions
Early-life weight gain among American-style football athletes is common and is associated
with risk of adverse health profiles during later-life. These findings establish football-associated
weight gain as a key predictor of post-career health and raise important questions
about the central role of targeted weight gain in this population.
Keywords
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Article info
Publication history
Published online: August 10, 2018
Footnotes
Funding: ALB has received funding from the National Institutes of Health/National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (R01 HL125869) to study cardiac structure and function in American-style football athletes. JHK has received funding from the National Institutes of Health/National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (K23 HL128795) to study vascular function in American-style football athletes. RZ, FES, MW, A P-L, LEN, and ALB have received research funding from the Football Players Health Study at Harvard University, which was funded by a grant from the National Football League Players Association. Funding agencies had no role in study design, data collection, or analysis. Funding agencies also had no role in the preparation of the manuscript.
Conflict of Interest: None.
Authorship: TWC and SK are co–first authors of the article. The content of this manuscript is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of the National Institutes of Health, the National Football League Players Association, Harvard Medical School, Harvard University or its affiliated academic health care centers, or the Massachusetts General Hospital. All authors had access to the data and a role in writing this manuscript.
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