The fall season is approaching and every year, there is an increase in ankle injuries among young athletes.  Football, soccer, and basketball are the sports most likely lead to sprains, broken bones and other problems.

According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control (CDC), nearly 30 million children and adolescents participate in youth sports in the United States and more than half of all sports injuries in children are preventable.  Children ages 5 to 14 account for almost 40 percent of all sports-related injuries treated in hospitals.  On average the rate of severity of injury increases with a child's age.

So how can parents be proactive and help protect their children from serious injuries in playing sports this fall?  Here are tips for staying healthy this season:

• Children should start the season with replacing their old shoes with new shoes.  Old shoes can wear down like an old tire and become flat and uneven on the bottom, causing the ankle to tilt because the foot can't lie flat.
• Always buy the right shoe for the specific sport. Players shouldn't mix soccer cleats with football shoes.
• Check the safety of the playing fields for dips and holes.  A foot can be broken if the child's foot gets lodged in a hole on a field.  Uneven surfaces on fields can also cause ankle sprains.   It is important that parents walk the field, especially when children compete in non-professional setting like public parks, for spots that could catch a player's foot and throw them to the ground.  Coaching officials should also be alerted to any irregularities.
• Encourage fun stretching and warm-up exercises.  Light jogging and calf stretches before competition helps warm up ligaments and blood vessels, reducing the risk for ankle injuries and foot problems.
• A supportive ankle brace may prevent a child's previously injured ankle from additional sprains.  So make sure and have old sprains checked by a podiatrist before the season starts. 
• Get ankle injuries treated right away.  What seems like a sprain is not always a sprain and other bones in the foot may have been injured without knowing it.  It is best to have a qualified podiatrist examine the injury.

Overall, families should be mindful of the risks associated with different sports and take important measures to reduce the chance of injury this fall.

Foot tattoos have continued to see a serious rise in popularity especially among women.  This may be due to their exotic attraction, and they can look very striking peeking out of a stylish shoe.  Most designs are usually small in nature, such as flowers, words (quotes), stars and butterflies.  Also, women are more likely to get tattoos, because they take better care of their feet starting from the toenails.

Tattoos on the foot are considered seasonal art, because it doesn’t make sense to wear leather shoes that hide the beautiful drawings on your feet.  Consequently, it doesn’t fit perfectly for cold winter weather when you have to wear closed in shoes or boots and thicker socks that will rub continuously against your foot tattoo.  However, they can be easily hidden for a potential employment interview.

The foot provides a nice flat surface for the tattoo to lie, however, the pain involved in applying a foot tattoo is much higher than applying a tattoo on a fleshy part of your body.  This is because of the absence of muscles in between the skin and the underlying bones.  Moreover, several nerves of our body end on the foot which makes it even more painful.  The general rule is this:  if a tattoo is done on a place where the skin is close to the bone, it will hurt more.

Incidence of ink migration can occur with foot tattoos as well.  The ink is likely to spread over time, blurring your design.  The top of the foot is best position for a tattoo and is less likely to get spread.  The sides of the feet or toes have more of a chance of getting blurred and should be avoided.  You will need to be prepared to go back and have a foot tattoo re-inked if need be.

There is also the issue of healing.  A new tattoo may require that you can't wear shoes or socks for the time your tattoo is healing, which usually takes two to three weeks.

Foot tattoos offer a great way to express your attitude and reflect your character.  They can have their own connotations, for example, the “F” in No Fear is the sign of a cross and the meaning is to embrace spirituality and have no fear "living life to its fullest."

Overall, enduring some pain and doing some re-ink maintenance can afford you the enjoyment you will have after wards of trying a foot tattoo.