Sports provide people around the world with unmatched entertainment, from the excitement of victory to the agony of defeat. Unfortunately, it also has become painfully clear that the agony of sports goes well beyond athletes losing games or competitions. Playing through concussions, the abuse of pain medicine, the use of performance-enhancing substances, and other health-related issues have become a constant reminder that being a professional athlete can be as dangerous as it is lucrative. In The Athlete's Dilemma: Sacrificing Health for Wealth and Fame, John Weston Parry examines the health-related transgressions and hot-topic issues in America’s top spectator sports, particularly in football, baseball, hockey, soccer, cycling, tennis, and Olympic competitions. Parry delves into the unique health risks that pertain to each individual sport and scrutinizes how the various leagues and organizations have handled these issues. Controversies and scandals surrounding elite athletes are also included, highlighting the need for changes in how sports are governed and regulated in the United States and worldwide. From football and soccer players returning to the field too soon after concussions to Olympic athletes using performance-enhancing substances, The Athlete’s Dilemma provides a broad perspective on the health risks prevalent in sports and what can be done to reduce these risks in the future. Accessibly written yet carefully researched, this book will be of interest to athletes of all levels, sports fans, academics, and health professionals.
When horrific acts of violence take place, events such as massacres in Boston, Newtown, CT, and Aurora, CO, people want answers. Who would commit such a thoughtless act of violence? What in their backgrounds could make them so inhumane, cruel, and evil? Often, people assume immediately that the perpetrator must have a mental disorder, and in some cases that does prove to be the case. But the assumption that most people with mental disorders are violent, prone to act out, and a threat to others and themselves, is clearly erroneous. Mental Disability, Violence, and Future Dangerousness thoroughly documents and explains how and why persons with mental disabilities who are perceived to be a future danger to others, the community, or themselves have become the most stigmatized, abused, and mistreated group in America, and what should be done to correct the resulting injustices. Each year state and federal governments incarcerate, deny treatment to, and otherwise deprive hundreds of thousands of Americans with mental disabilities of their fundamental rights, liberties, and freedoms— including on occasion their lives—based on unreliable and misleading predictions that they are likely to be dangerous in the future. Yet, due to an exaggerated fear of violence in our society, almost no one seems concerned about these injustices, which exclusively affect Americans who have been impaired by mental disorders and the lack of treatment, especially after they have been abused as children or injured in combat. Instead, we appear to be oblivious to these injustices or comfortable in allowing them to become worse. Here, John Weston Parry carefully delineates the mishandling of persons with mental disabilities by the criminal and civil justice systems, and illustrates the ways in which we can identify and remedy those injustices.
Sports provide people around the world with unmatched entertainment, from the excitement of victory to the agony of defeat. Unfortunately, it also has become painfully clear that the agony of sports goes well beyond athletes losing games or competitions. Playing through concussions, the abuse of pain medicine, the use of performance-enhancing substances, and other health-related issues have become a constant reminder that being a professional athlete can be as dangerous as it is lucrative. In The Athlete's Dilemma: Sacrificing Health for Wealth and Fame, John Weston Parry examines the health-related transgressions and hot-topic issues in America’s top spectator sports, particularly in football, baseball, hockey, soccer, cycling, tennis, and Olympic competitions. Parry delves into the unique health risks that pertain to each individual sport and scrutinizes how the various leagues and organizations have handled these issues. Controversies and scandals surrounding elite athletes are also included, highlighting the need for changes in how sports are governed and regulated in the United States and worldwide. From football and soccer players returning to the field too soon after concussions to Olympic athletes using performance-enhancing substances, The Athlete’s Dilemma provides a broad perspective on the health risks prevalent in sports and what can be done to reduce these risks in the future. Accessibly written yet carefully researched, this book will be of interest to athletes of all levels, sports fans, academics, and health professionals.
When horrific acts of violence take place, events such as massacres in Boston, Newtown, CT, and Aurora, CO, people want answers. Who would commit such a thoughtless act of violence? What in their backgrounds could make them so inhumane, cruel, and evil? Often, people assume immediately that the perpetrator must have a mental disorder, and in some cases that does prove to be the case. But the assumption that most people with mental disorders are violent, prone to act out, and a threat to others and themselves, is clearly erroneous. Mental Disability, Violence, and Future Dangerousness thoroughly documents and explains how and why persons with mental disabilities who are perceived to be a future danger to others, the community, or themselves have become the most stigmatized, abused, and mistreated group in America, and what should be done to correct the resulting injustices. Each year state and federal governments incarcerate, deny treatment to, and otherwise deprive hundreds of thousands of Americans with mental disabilities of their fundamental rights, liberties, and freedoms— including on occasion their lives—based on unreliable and misleading predictions that they are likely to be dangerous in the future. Yet, due to an exaggerated fear of violence in our society, almost no one seems concerned about these injustices, which exclusively affect Americans who have been impaired by mental disorders and the lack of treatment, especially after they have been abused as children or injured in combat. Instead, we appear to be oblivious to these injustices or comfortable in allowing them to become worse. Here, John Weston Parry carefully delineates the mishandling of persons with mental disabilities by the criminal and civil justice systems, and illustrates the ways in which we can identify and remedy those injustices.
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