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As if the fact that scouts showing up at middle school basketball games and soccer clubs signing 9-year-old kids wasn't enough, we now have a new creepy test in the sports world that can help parents discover what sports their kids may be good at from pretty much the second after they're born. Yes, in Boulder, Colorado a place called Atlas Sports Genetics is offering a $149 test that will help lead your child to athletic glory! Basically, they swab your kids mouth to collect DNA and return it to a lab for analysis of ACTN3, one gene among more than 20,000 in the human genome.
The test’s goal is to determine whether a person would be best at speed and power sports like sprinting or football, or endurance sports like distance running, or a combination of the two. A 2003 study discovered the link between ACTN3 and those athletic abilities.
Now, to me, this sounds like a great way to waste $149 rather than actually having it tell you anything useful. First of all, it's pretty damn vague. And all it really takes to figure out whether your kid belongs doing distance running or football is to take him/her down to the track and have them sprint about 50 meters. There's your answer. Plus, imagine how funny it would be ordering your 2-year-old to sprint down a track.
Just so you know, my reservations about this test are shared by plenty of people.
Some experts say ACTN3 testing is in its infancy and virtually useless. Dr. Theodore Friedmann, the director of the University of California-San Diego Medical Center’s interdepartmental gene therapy program, called it “an opportunity to sell new versions of snake oil.”
“This may or may not be quite that venal, but I would like to see a lot more research done before it is offered to the general public,” he said. “I don’t deny that these genes have a role in athletic success, but it’s not that black and white.”
“This may or may not be quite that venal, but I would like to see a lot more research done before it is offered to the general public,” he said. “I don’t deny that these genes have a role in athletic success, but it’s not that black and white.”
It's also somewhat misleading for a test to say that a kid could excel at a sport 12 or 15 years down the road. Pretty much anything can happen to derail that. Like the kid doesn't like the sport, or has stone hands, or has no heart.
Plus, I'd hate to imagine what a test like this will do to those crazy nuts parents who lord over everything their kids do on the playing field. Because you know if someone tells them, "Your kid has the right genetic makeup for football", they'll forever see their kid as the next Tom Brady or LaDainian Tomlinson, which simply isn't going to happen.
Anyway, at least this is yet another step towards my dream of watching pro athletes ultimately get cloned simply for my enjoyment. I tell you, if I don't get to witness a team of Michael Jordans versus a team of Kobe Bryants before I die, I'll be one angry man.
Born to run? Little ones get test for sports gene [NY Times]
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