I have been working with a lot of teen athletes for a while now and I wanted to provide a few general tips on how I look at helping teens with their nutrition.
First, a bit of background on how I define “athlete” and how I see nutrition: Any teen that is active and probably has goals in their athletic ability is an athlete. You do not need to be a certain size, body fat percentage, or workout in a certain way to be an athlete. The way I approach nutrition is that food is fuel. We eat to help our bodies and brain feel good and function well for the life that we want. Food has no moral value, there are no “good foods and bad foods” and I never encourage kids to diet and lose weight to be smaller or look a certain way. I will only talk about food for kids in terms of helping teens do the things they want to do in school, sports, and life. (For more about not moralizing food choices, see Robb Wolf’s book, Wired to Eat.)
Given that, here are some tips to helping teen athletes with their nutrition:
- Don’t count calories: Counting calories can lead to eating disorders and we want to be very careful with our kids. I rarely let a teen log their food into a system that also puts the caloric values on the food and/or gives calorie recommendations.
- Any food logging is to gain information only: If your teen is going to log their food, they can write it down or take photos of their food. The point in logging food would be for them to also note how the felt during training, school, and life and see if there are any links between how they ate and how they function. This is usually used when trying to figure out food sensitivities.
- Log sleep, training, and injury/pain: Not enough sleep and not enough recovery (or too little training) can lead to poor performance or injury and pain. You want teens to learn that many things affect how you feel and perform, not just food.
- Be an objective observer: Teens may say that they can eat whatever and they don’t feel or perform any differently. However, you will notice that on a day they ate pizza and pop the night before, they are tired and sluggish during training, workouts that are normally easy for them seem hard, they have a hard time concentrating on school work, or they may have stomach pains or other physical issues. You can mention to them what you are observing, as long as you never moralize food choices or their performance! Here is an example of what you could say: “I noticed that today your two mile run was really hard for you and you got side cramps and a stomach ache. This has happened a few times the day after you went out to the movies and got popcorn, pizza, and pop. Maybe we can remember that and see if eating something a little different the day before a long practice might make you feel a little better.” Your kid could get equally sick with a stomach ache from fruit as another child could from pizza (every body is different), so never say; “When you at all those bad foods, you performed badly. You can’t do that again.”
- Make sure they eat enough: If your child seems to not have enough energy or keeps getting injured easily, you need to make sure they are eating enough (regardless of their size.) In order to do that, you (not your teen) can periodically log their food in a calorie app and just check and see if they are getting enough calories and a good mix of macronutrients (carbs, protein, and fats.) (To get responsible calorie targets for a teen, go to a doctor that specializes in sports.) Remember to take into account that teens keep growing and calorie needs will increase often.
- Talk about food as fuel: Food helps us do what we want by making sure we have energy and helping us feel good mentally and physically. Food is not about weight loss.
- Periodically make some meals for them: While we want our teens to be independent and make all of their meals, their brain is not fully developed and they still need our guidance. Make some meals for/with them and include the foods and portions you know they need to keep fueled. This way they have some sort of visual guidelines that they will model when they make their own meals.
- Give teens a visual of how their plate might look for most meals: My general recommendation for nutrition that fuels your body is to eat half your plate full of veggies, a palm sized portion of meat, some nuts and seeds, some fruit and some healthy fat, little starch, and no sugar. Eat enough to give you energy for your workouts, school, and day, but not so much that you feel tired and sluggish. (See photo.)
- Speak kindly about yourself: Our kids mimic us and even though it seems like our teens can’t hear us half the time (due to headphones in their ears 24/7) they do. If you call yourself fat, weak, or ugly they will do the same to themselves.
- Exercise is not an exchange for food: Exercise enables us to do the things we love and have an active brain and body. The purpose of exercise is not to “be allowed to” eat food. Exercise as an exchange for food is another huge trigger for eating disorders, especially overexercising.
I hope this helps give you some ideas to help your teen athlete with nutrition. This post is for informational use only. As always, before changing anything with your teens diet, consult with your pediatrician first.
In Health,
Coach Katie
DISCLAIMER: Please remember that these are general guidelines that work for most people. All content here is for informational purposes only. I am a health and wellness coach, not a nutritionist, doctor, or dietician so none of this is to be considered medical advice or personalized advice on your situation or your child. As always, before changing anything with your teens diet, consult with your pediatrician first.