And encouraging foods they won’t eat isn’t helping them reach their goals, either.
“You see these ‘Athlete Nutrition Recommendations’ littered with the encouragement of broiled fish, broccoli, & quinoa.
The infographics are cute, but guess what..
They ain’t eating that stuff.
If we want to drive real change we must focus on Realistic > ideal.”
-Ray Zingler on X
I always get a kick out of Sally Soccer Mom’s Nutrition recommendations for “teen athletes!”
Typically, in the picto-graphic you’ll see some cute pictures of vegetables, grains, and pea proteins, talking all about how kids need to eat brussel sprouts, yams, and legumes!
I get it, I would prefer our kids eat extraordinarily healthfully, too.
But guess what..
As cute and sound as your infographic is…
They aint eating that stuff.
And on top of it, do you know how much of the “health stuff” they would have to consume to reach a sufficient caloric and protein intake?
Monumental amounts.
Sorry Karen, Jimmy isn’t going to eat 4 cups of lentils during 3rd period to hit his macros.
I’m always careful to talk about nutrition because it’s obviously very subjective and you have zealots looking to scream from every corner of every spectrum, but I’ll just shoot you straight when it comes to youth athletes:
1, They don’t eat NEARLY enough as it is.
2, They are miles away from the getting in sufficient amounts of protein (their most important macronutrient).
So if I know our (highly) active kids are severely undernourished and lacking protein in their diets, I’m sorry, but I’m not encouraging 4oz of grilled chicken, 6 times a day.
Again, there is nothing wrong with the above advice from a fundamental perspective.
At 33 years old, I largely choose to eat similarly.
But a picky kid who is in school 7 hours a day with obligations before and after?
You’re damn right I’m encouraging 2 Jimmy Deal Sausage bowls for breakfast. A 12” double meat sub for lunch, and Pizza or burgers after practice.
“What! How dare you!?”
Everything is contextual, right.
And while the kids are growing, I want most of their choices to be healthy, but on a HIGH output day, not getting the before bed milkshake can be looked at as a negative, if not drinking it leaves them calorically deficient.
“My encouragement” (again, contextually speaking) put Jimmy over 3k calories, and over 150g of protein, the typical recommendations of chomping on raw vegetables like a rabbit, well, that gets them absolutely nowhere.
We must change our youth athlete nutrition approach from ideal to realistic.
