With school starting again it’s also time for organized sports and other intense activities to take up much of our kids “spare time”. Young growing athletes work hard, play hard and place extra demands on their bodies.

Proper training combined with sound nutrition practices can help meet these demands, especially since during these developmental years kids can grow 2–3 inches (or more) and gain 3-6 pounds annually.

Child athletes need to eat extra calories in order to grow physically and to perform to the best of their athletic ability. Children can all be stars if they feel mentally and physically strong, enabling them to grow as players and ultimately have fun with their peers. Parents and coaches have the responsibility to help them in this quest as most kids don’t quite understand or appreciate the values of training and proper nutrition.

Most active children will get the nutrients they need if they eat the number of servings recommended in each category of the Canada Food Guide for Healthy Eating. The extra calories our active and training children need should mainly consist of carbohydrate rich foods.

Carbohydrates come in two forms, simple and complex. Simple carbohydrate or simple sugar is usually best defined as “sweet”. It is easily digested and absorbed into the blood stream to provide quick energy.

Complex carbohydrate might best be described as “starchy”. Starches found in food such as potatoes for example, provide energy more slowly. This happens because they take longer to be digested into sugar and to be absorbed into the bloodstream as glucose.

After carbohydrates are digested, they are used to provide energy. For immediate energy, carbohydrate is turned into glucose which is circulated in the blood. The liver and muscles can store carbohydrate as glycogen which can be used for energy (as glucose) later during exercise. An intermittent sport such as hockey uses glucose from stored glycogen as fuel. While the muscles and liver do store glycogen, it is only a limited amount. Athletes must replace glycogen by eating more carbohydrate, especially after exercise.

Child athletes who experience fatigue or sluggishness might be training too hard, might be dehydrated, may be generally out of shape or might be eating too little carbohydrate. 50-60% of total calories should be in the form of carbohydrates - with the majority of those calories coming in the form of complex carbohydrates.

Children and Protein

Despite many claims that protein boosts athletic performance, protein’s main function is to maintain and repair body tissues (it also makes hemoglobin, antibodies, enzymes and hormones). Eating more than the recommended amount will not improve these functions and will not make muscles larger or stronger.

Any excess protein is stored in the body as fat. Muscles do not get noticeably bigger unless the body has enough male hormones (androgens) in the blood. Boys and girls add muscle during puberty with boys eventually having more androgens circulating in the blood stream resulting in greater muscle mass. To gain muscle mass, hormones alone do not cut it, athletes must increase the workload (training) and eat a balanced diet that contains enough calories.

Young athletes can easily meet their protein needs by following the food guide recommendations. Choices should be spread out though the day rather than one large serving, and unless recommended by a recognized nutritionist or dietician children do not need protein supplementation in the form of powders or shakes.

Get your child athletes involved to an age appropriate degree. If they can pack their own hockey bag, they can choose from a list of snacks and ultimately understand how and why certain habits are good for them.

Weight Loss Tips - “How to Cut the Calories without Suffering”

Nibbling, extra portion size and “seconds” have an impact on your caloric impact – probably much larger than you think. But if you can trim 200, 300 or 500 calories by making careful food choices you could lose some of the extra “baggage” you are carrying around.

Here’s how: Slice first - Don’t just put the platter on the table and dig in. Divvy up the pizza, pot roast or cake into individual servings before you serve it. Better still, cover or put away the food you aren’t eating - out of sight is out of mind.

Grab a handful - Limit your snacking on chips, crackers and other finger foods to whatever you can fit into the palm of your hand. Read the label to see exactly what you are munching on. A “serving size” is often much smaller than you think - so use the habit of taking one handful and you should steer clear of unwanted calories. (Tip: compare the serving size to the portion or package size - many serving sizes are smaller than the portion in the package. A good example are sport drinks - the serving size is a 250 ml (about one cup) portion, while the bottle contains 600 ml. - or twice the calories.)

Add more for less - Fill your glass with ice before adding juice or a soft drink and save calories. Save over 100 calories per glass just by filling with ice. (Tip: The average cup (250 ml) of a sweetened soft drink or natural juice is about 200 calories. Unsweetened beverages don’t contain many calories, but do you want to fill yourself with aspartame and other chemical sweeteners?)

Drink water - As often as you’ve heard this message, you probably need to drink more water. Water is the perfect snack – try it before munching to see if you were thirsty and not hungry. As a rule you should consume one ml. of water for every calorie of energy you expend each day – It’s a bit more than eight glasses.

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