Sports Nutrition Basics

Young athletes attempting to lose weight and body fat or gain weight and muscle mass may resort to unhealthy weight-control practices.  Gradual weight loss or gain is best.

 

NSF International, a non-profit firm that tests and certifies dietary supplements and sports nutritional products to ensure they are free of banned substances such as steroids, has announced full support for the United States Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) "Supplement Safety Now" campaign.  The campaign will create increased awareness around this important public health issue and help safeguard consumers from taking steroids and other illegal or controlled substances in products that are marketed as "safe and legal" dietary supplements.

If your child has an early morning practice, it is important to eat a nutritious meal the night before, a bedtime snack, and a small snack/mini-breakfast that morning for peak performance.

Here are some pre-game meal ideas for breakfast, lunch and dinner before your child's big game.

If your child goes to a game or scrimmage without having eaten, he or she will not have the energy to play at his/her full potential.  A  meal 2 to 3 hours before the game made up mostly of carbohydrate-rich foods provides the fuel for sports.

Cutting out all fats isn't a good idea because the body needs some fats to function.  The key is for your child to eat food with healthful fats and avoid unhealthy fats like saturated fats, trans fats and hydrogenated oils.

When you eat a starchy food, like a banana, the carbohydrates are changed into blood sugar or glucose, which muscles burn for energy.  Any glucose that's not immediately used gets stored in the muscles and liver as glycogen- which can be used for energy later.  Glycogen is the preferred fuel for muscles.

Nutrient dense whole foods are best for sports. To figure out whether a food is a whole food or not, you just have to ask yourself if it was manufactured in a factory or grown in a field.  Or better yet, read the label. If it's a whole food, you should be able to recognize every ingredient as something that grows in nature.

What should your child eat before training and competition? Here's some advice on what to eat and not eat, drink and not drink, and when, before sports.