Girls soccer players in San Diego are beginning to follow a fashion trend that’s turning heads – so to speak.
Protective headbands worn on the soccer field have been around for several years. Though the padded, cloth headbands aren’t scientifically proven to prevent concussions, players on the San Diego Surf soccer team are wearing them as a precautionary measure.
The team is featured in a Wednesday report on Rock Center with Brian Williams.
The company Full90 has sold about half a million of the protective headbands – worn by athletes of all ages, from FIFA stars to youth league players, their website claims.
The company promises that wearing the padded bands will reduce the probability of getting a concussion by up to 50 percent, the company’s developer Jeff Skeen said on a recent episode of Rock Center with Brian Williams.
However Dr. Bob Cantu, director of sports medicine at Emerson Hospital in Concord, Mass, has his doubts that the headbands should be trusted to protect these soccer players.
“My problem with the headbands is that they’re primarily marketed as a concussion reduction device,” he said. “That is something that there is no proof that they are.”
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In any case, the headbands have raised awareness for what has often been perceived as a problem in men’s sports, Cantu said.
“People who think of concussions as only being present mostly in guys and mostly in the sport of football are just plain wrong,” said Cantu, also the chairman of the surgery division at Emerson Hospital the Rock Center interview . “Soccer is right at the top of the list for girls.”
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