Strength Training May Stunt Your Growth

[Conway]

Did I ever assert otherwise that it wasn't 33%? The poster I was addressing tried to claim that the number of accidents during farm-related work was < 1% by comparing the number of fatalities rather than injuries. His math was incorrect.

How was his math incorrect? If 8666 injuries are considered work related injuries on farms, and there are 1.1 million kids on farms, the rate of work related injuries to total child population is .0078. This number was obtained by dividing the sample size (8666) by the total population size (1.1 million, or 1100000). Based on this math, the fatality rate would be .000076.

Obviously it would be more accurate to know how many of these children were doing work. I would think it would be appropriate to say, about half of the children were likely doing some labor on the farms (8 and over doing some chores around the farm). This would place the rate of injury to be about 8666 per 550000 child farm workers. This also doesn't take into account sanctioned versus unsanctioned work, like the example of the kid who decides he's going to help out by running the combine to surprise his parents or whatever.

But this whole conversation is stupid. Who the fuck is the government to decide what is too dangerous? To tell you how to raise your kids, or how you should feed them, or whatever. As much as frothing liberals like to bitch and moan about huge corporate farms and distributors ruining small agriculture - what the fuck do you think cutting their available labor force is going to do? People have been working their kids on their property or to help them farm since agriculture began.

It is always just one little intrusion after another, and people ignore it and ignore it as small potatoes. Some day you may look around and not recognize the country you live in or remember what freedom was.

[rumblefish]

I don't get why everyone wants to gloss over the parents. Why do we we need the government to look out for children on the farm? That's the job of the parents. If the parents are piss poor and don't give two shits about their kids what are you going to do about it? the only way you could really protect kids from piss poor parents is to take the kids away. Is that where we want to go? Or are we going to station federal agents in the home to make sure the parents are acting in Accordance with federal regs? Car accidents, accidental drownings, suffocation, poisonings, electrocution, getting run over by parents car, crushed by garage door, choking, you think the government is going to stop ALL of it?

People not using their brains anymore because they think someone else is protecting them is what you get from these policies. We have to have warnings on fucking everything. So much so that we are desensitized to them and don't even pay attention to them.

[Mark E. Hurling]

If you want to talk numbers, please provide the rates of injuries and not the gross numbers. How many children < 16 years old work on a farm and use the dangerous machinery? Of these individuals how many of them are injured and what types of injuries do they sustain? Sprained ankles and broken bones are far different from missing arms and legs. Also, what is the acceptable rate of these injuries among children. Basically you need to create a simple cost to benefit ratio to determine if such a law is warranted. I don't personally know the answers to any of these questions so I will refrain from having an opinion on the necessity of such a law. However, if the rate of injury is high or the severity of the injuries being sustained is great then I would believe the costs outweigh any benefit.

But to address your "numbers" you were not comparing the 84 fatalities to the number of children < 16 years involved in doing farm work. You made a calculation based upon the number of fatalities vs. the number of injuries. When you did so you were comparing two completely separate metrics for which you based your argument on. It was a dishonest argument, whether it was intentional or not. The flaw with your reasoning is that you are cherry picking numbers in an attempt to validate your argument.

You are obviously better versed in using numbers to obfuscate the obvious and avoid common sense. I'll start with the deaths and work backward. Again. Since it didn't seem glaringly apparent to you the first time. There were 84 deaths of people under 18 involved in farming in 2005 and there were 1.1 million such people involved in farming in 2001. I know, there's a 4 year gap in those two figures but let's just stipulate that they are reasonably accurate portrayas of relative percentages. I like simple math since I'm not that good at it. Here's a crayon simple formula that even a Geico caveman could understand. 84 deaths/1,100,000 total people that age involved = .000078%. I'll reiterate, can we agree that is a pretty small number?

So now lets try the same thing with the work related injury rate. As Greg correctly pointed out I should have been using .33 and not .30 as the representation for 1/3. Like I said, I'm not that good at math, but I can formulate the Hell out of an Excel spreadsheet. The story said there were 26,000 injuries of people under 18 involved in farming of which only one third were work related. You with me so far? This can be expressed in a formula thusly: 26,000 * .33 = 8,580. The product (like that mathy word?) of 8,580 representing how many people were injured while actually working on a farm. That leaves 17,420 who were injured on farms while not working.

You may be good at math and setting up tables of subsets and using big math concepts but you really should have started learned to read from phonics rather than the whole word method as a kid. Because your reading comprehension still fails and what is more you keep attributing calculations to me that I didn't make. I like that nice escape clause you devised for yourself "intentional or not." Sorry, it fails too. As for cherry picking numbers, I only used the same numbers you did and they were all from the Reuters article. You are inventing other implied rates and categories to prove what I don't know other than your seeming hostility to teaching kids a solid work ethic.

As for your attack of me being some sort of "city kid", although this is nothing more than an ad hominem attack on me and doesn't need to be addressed, let me inform you that I grew up surrounded by farms in central PA. In fact I had my first job when i was 12 which consisted of me doing manual labor on a farm. However, my duties never had me performing any work with industrial machinery.

Ah, now you're using Latin and although you say it doesn't need to be addressed, you address it anyway. If what you say is true, than I am really baffled by your seemingly willful ignorance of farming and the work that gets done on them. You also are ignoring the clear and unmistakeable quotes I made from the regulation that show that much of it applies to manual labor without benefit of anything more complicated than a shovel or bucket of grain. Working for old McDonald really left some scars on you huh? Did slopping the hogs scare you? You do need to be careful with pigs, if you fall down in the pen and don't get up right away they will actually try to eat your ass.

[Mark Rippetoe]

Also, if you are going to bring up "individual liberty and responsibility" of young children, would that mean you would be for eliminating all child labor laws so that children are able to work 12-16 hours a day for a pittance? What is the difference between some kid working on a farm as compared to some kid slinging burgers from an individual liberty and personal responsibility perspective?

I'm talking about the liberty and the responsibility of the parents. The people with the legal capacity to make decisions for their children, since children are minors.

But beyond all of that, here is the major concern I have with you and this topic. The thread was started out by saying that this proposed bill meant that manual labor is too hard for children and may result in the stunting of growth of children. Nowhere in the proposed bill was that even mentioned. I fully support your stance that weight training does not stunt the growth of children, nor is it harmful to their health. However, yourself and many others have dog piled onto this nonsensical strawman argument when nowhere in the proposed bill was this even mentioned or otherwise implied.

It's not a fucking BILL. It's not legislation. It is a regulatory agency making and enforcing law without the legislative process. The discussion has passed the initial topic. If this bothers you, go away.

[SumDumGoi]

How was his math incorrect? If 8666 injuries are considered work related injuries on farms, and there are 1.1 million kids on farms, the rate of work related injuries to total child population is .0078. This number was obtained by dividing the sample size (8666) by the total population size (1.1 million, or 1100000). Based on this math, the fatality rate would be .000076.

Obviously it would be more accurate to know how many of these children were doing work. I would think it would be appropriate to say, about half of the children were likely doing some labor on the farms (8 and over doing some chores around the farm). This would place the rate of injury to be about 8666 per 550000 child farm workers. This also doesn't take into account sanctioned versus unsanctioned work, like the example of the kid who decides he's going to help out by running the combine to surprise his parents or whatever.

But this whole conversation is stupid. Who the fuck is the government to decide what is too dangerous? To tell you how to raise your kids, or how you should feed them, or whatever. As much as frothing liberals like to bitch and moan about huge corporate farms and distributors ruining small agriculture - what the fuck do you think cutting their available labor force is going to do? People have been working their kids on their property or to help them farm since agriculture began.

It is always just one little intrusion after another, and people ignore it and ignore it as small potatoes. Some day you may look around and not recognize the country you live in or remember what freedom was.

Going back I noticed that I misinterpreted what he was saying. For that my apologies. However, the argument being made is still a dishonest one. Comparing the total number of injuries and representing it as a straight percentage is not a valid metric. Epidemiological research such as this is typically expressed in "rates of occurrence" (e.g. number of injuries per 10,000 people). By expressing things as a straight percentage it will always appear as though there isn't a problem. For example, in 2010 there were 246 homicides in Detroit which has a population of 713,777 people. Using the same metric provided earlier for comparison that would mean that if you lived in Detroit you had a 0.03% chance of being killed and therefore homicide is of no concern. Given this metric for comparison do you feel that homicide in Detroit is not a problem?

The reason why the government does get involved in situations like this is because this is because the annual cost of farm-related injuries for youth alone tops $1 billion per year. Perhaps the large cost of youth related injuries coupled with the fact that these children can suffer from life-altering injuries as they are being exploited as a cheap workforce "might" be enough of a reason for government to act. Also, where do you think the costs of these types of injuries get passed down to? Someone is going to be making up this $1 billion+ in costs. Yes, on a farm the line does become blurred between household chores and farm work. However, what makes farm work so special that it should get a complete pass from child labor laws? If I own a lumber-jacking business should I be handing my 10-year old kid a chainsaw and tell him to start chopping down some trees?

As for you government rant, I will make you a deal.The moment the conservatives stay out of other people bedrooms, women's vagina's, and stop being offended by every other religion that is not Christianity you can make that point. But until the conservatives actually keep the government out of everyone's life like they claim and stop forcing their own personal belief system onto everyone else you can fuck off.

[Mark Rippetoe]

That is precisely why I am not a conservative, you fucking socialist moron.

[Mark E. Hurling]

As for you government rant, I will make you a deal.The moment the conservatives stay out of other people bedrooms, women's vagina's, and stop being offended by every other religion that is not Christianity you can make that point. But until the conservatives actually keep the government out of everyone's life like they claim and stop forcing their own personal belief system onto everyone else you can fuck off.

So your argument was all about the math, eh? Show me where I talked about the bedroom, women's bodies, or religion. Just since I'm having some real fun with you now that you have declared yourself, how about taking the log out of your own eye before talking about the speck in someone else's eye? That's a New Testament Biblical reference especially quoted just to irritate you. The Pharisees would find you a kindred spirit. Old McDonald must not have had enough of a collectivist view for you. Funny how when a liberal like you gets challenged about their biases he feels compelled to resort to telling others to fuck off. But then of course my ad hominem attack is just a display of your knowledge of Latin. Well done, Sir. Another de-pantsing accomplished.

[rumblefish]

As for you government rant, I will make you a deal.The moment the conservatives stay out of other people bedrooms, women's vagina's, and stop being offended by every other religion that is not Christianity you can make that point. But until the conservatives actually keep the government out of everyone's life like they claim and stop forcing their own personal belief system onto everyone else you can fuck off.

Well, I do consider myself a conservative. Your point is idiotic.

1. I don't give a shit what people do in their bedrooms, and many conservatives don't. The Catholic church does, I'm not Catholic, maybe you should have addressed your rant at them.

2. I guess you got me there, I do want to get in women's vaginas.

3. I'm Christian, please tell me what other religions I'm offended by.

4. Stop forcing belief systems on others... You mean like environmentalists, socialists, communists, antagonistic atheists, liberals, etc.? I don't force my beliefs on anyone, I believe in freedom and independence.

[SumDumGoi]

So your argument was all about the math, eh? Show me where I talked about the bedroom, women's bodies, or religion. Just since I'm having some real fun with you now that you have declared yourself, how about taking the log out of your own eye before talking about the speck in someone else's eye? That's a New Testament Biblical reference especially quoted just to irritate you. The Pharisees would find you a kindred spirit. Old McDonald must not have had enough of a collectivist view for you. Funny how when a liberal like you gets challenged about their biases he feels compelled to resort to telling others to fuck off. But then of course my ad hominem attack is just a display of your knowledge of Latin. Well done, Sir. Another de-pantsing accomplished.

I'm glad you think so. Now please address the actual argument. Pay attention to the parts regarding using "rates of occurrences" as opposed to percentages when presenting the data and answer the question regarding the 10 year old kid and a chainsaw.

[ColoWayno]

That is precisely why I am not a conservative, you fucking socialist moron.

Some of us "c's" are pretty sincere about not wanting to run your life or have the government in your bedroom.