Roy aflalo 038696084
  Word count: 2377  Posted: 22-03-2005
Surfing Mark Renneker Family and Community Medicine, University of California, San Francisco San Francisco, California USA      The sport of surfing has grown at a phenomenal rate over the last 30 or so years.  Although surfing has been practiced for centuries by Hawaiians and other Polynesian cultures, it was a relatively obscure sport until it gained mass popularity in the early 60s, triggered by the Gidget, Beach Boy, and beach party movie craze.  Fueled by a multi-billion dollar clothes and beachwear industry, the icons and persona of surfing – the "beach life style" – have become a mainstay of present day popular culture, regardless of whether one has ever surfed, much less set foot in the ocean.
     The demographics of the sport now include an estimated 4 million surfers worldwide, with about 1.5 million on the West Coast of the United States, 600,000 on the East and Gulf Coasts, 175,000 in Hawaii, 700,000 in Japan,
1 million in Australia and New Zealand, and 100,000 scattered along the coasts of South America, South Africa, and Europe.  Males outnumber females by almost 10:1.  Depending on the location and the type of surfing, the average age is between 16-21 years old, but the range is from young children to octogenarians.  Most take up the sport when in their teens.  There appears to be an upward age trend – a graying of the sport – with fewer surfers giving it up as they grow older.        Although the traditional form of surfing is to stand on a ….