There’s nothing like a bit of media scaremongering, hysteria and headline hunting to really screw a sport.

A reporter from BBC news
has managed to drag a “Child bike injury toll ‘tops 100,000′” headline from a report that said a few thousand kids suffer cycling injuries each year. The ‘several thousand’ figure was from road accidents. So the reporter’s logic is that if you combine this with other reports that have said 9 out of 10 accidents occur off road (we’re pretty sure that they mean the recently publicised one from the hospital at Ludlow – something of a downhill mecca), then hey presto, you’ve got a ‘hundred thousand injuries’.

Now obviously we’ve got absolutely no beef with anyone encouraging kids to wear cycling helmets but this kind of alarmist stats massaging does nobody any favours. If parents read about a hundred thousand kids injuries a year from bikes they aren’t going to think, ‘I’d best get little Johnny a helmet’, they’re just going to hide the bike and let Johnny get fat playing computer games inside.

Meanwhile in America, a study reported by Reuters states that “Obesity exacts a higher toll on health and healthcare costs than either smoking or drinking as serious obesity-related problems like diabetes are near epidemic levels.
The study goes on to show that obesity — linked to health complications including diabetes, arthritis, heart disease, strokes and certain cancers — raises a person’s healthcare costs by 36 percent and medication costs by 77 percent.

Smoking and drinking also cause serious health problems, but the study, released by the journal Health Affairs, found that active smoking leads to a more modest 21-percent rise in healthcare costs and 28-percent increase in medication costs, with smaller effects seen for problem drinkers.

So while our jolly journalists do a fantastic job of discouraging parents from allowing their children to use one of the most efficient and fun means of exercise – the bike – rising obesity related costs will probably cripple our health service over the next few years. Hurrah for the media! Makes me proud to be one of em :-(.