Are High School Athletes Eating Enough?

Today's post is one that I feel needs to be addressed. This doesn't just go for high school athletes, but they are the ones that I come into the most contact with, so I see it more often at that level.

To me, the answer is a resounding "no."

Far too often I talk with a kid during a practice, during a game, or even just after school when they are working out. They tell me they feel tired, fatigued, dizzy, sick, etc.

When I first started hearing complaints like this, I wondered if maybe the athlete had something more going on, such as a concussion.

And as part of my screening process, I'd ask the kid what they had for lunch that day at school. Far, far, far too often the answers were disgustingly similar. "I had a banana and some chips." Anything else? "No." Anything to drink? "Some water." Have you had anything since then? "No." What did you have for breakfast? "I didn't eat breakfast."

Now, you can substitute the banana for a slice of pizza or some chicken nuggets. Maybe take out the chips and exchange it with a sandwich. But the point is the same. The "average" lunch served is 750-850 calories, and that's if the athlete eats the entire lunch provided to them. I can tell you, that isn't happening.

Check out this article from ABC News, discussing school lunches. It does a great job of breaking down what some of these lunches might look like (in their entirety) and also shows some alternatives from popular fast food chains that meet the 850 (or fewer) calories that Congress set as the limit to be served during lunch less than ten years ago.

So let's start to break this down. I'll give the athlete the benefit of the doubt and give them the 850 calories for lunch. I'll even add in an apple or bowl of cereal for breakfast to get them to 950 calories for the day before we even get to after school practice/games.

Livestrong's Erica Leigh wrote a nice little article explaining how many calories we expend while sitting. Obviously, calories burned depends on a person's weight, age, and gender (among other things).

In this piece, she gives rough estimates for a 150-pound person:

"For a 150-lb. person, sitting quietly burns 68 calories per hour, sitting while talking, spectating at a sports event or doing light work burns 102 calories per hour and sitting while doing moderate work burns 170 calories per hour."

... and for a 200-pound individual:

"in the categories listed above, a 200-lb. person burns 91, 136 and 221 calories per hour, respectively."

Now we can throw in some math. If I'm a 150 pound student athlete, and I've ate all of the calories provided to me at lunch, add in my 95-calorie apple, I'm sitting at roughly 950 calories eaten for the day.

We'll assume that I don't ever talk in school and I sit for the entire 7.5 hour day. I don't get up and go the restroom. I don't walk to lunch. I don't walk between classes. I stay in the same seat all day without ever getting up or making a peep. I'm burning 70 calories/hour. That comes to 525 calories.

This leaves me with 425 calories as my fuel for the game or practice following school.

We can bump things up a bit by accusing me of being a 200-pound basketball player that likes to talk/be engaged in the classroom with other classmates/teachers. Now my 950 calorie day, subtracted by 130 calories/hour, leaves me -25 calories before practice starts.

You read that correctly. NEGATIVE 25 calories. I've already burned more than I took in and I haven't started running/jumping/cutting/shooting yet.

In this article by Ms. Leigh on Livestrong's website, she estimates that a 200-pound individual will burn approximately 363 calories in just 30 minutes of playing a basketball game. Most practices last about 2 hours. Often times, conditioning is included in this two hours.

I'm going to assume that I won't burn 363 calories every 30 minutes of practice because there will be moments during that practice that I'm listening to the coach, walking through plays, and getting some water. Just for simplicity sake, I'm going to give me calorie expenditure a total of 200 calories every 30 minutes, or 800 calories during my two hour practice.

This is not going to include any conditioning/sprints that coach puts us through.

By the end of practice (a relatively light one, mind you), I've now burned 825 MORE calories than I've taken in for the entire day.

If I'm a 30-year old office worker that sits at a desk all day and is trying to drop 30-40 pounds, this would be OK. But I'm supposed to be able to sustain long bouts of high demands on my body and my body is going to need some type of fuel to accomplish this or I'm placing myself at an increased risk for injury secondary to decreased performance as I fatigue and wear down.

So to get to my point...

We (as parents, coaches, educators, etc) need to make sure our young athletes/children are getting enough energy to sustain the demands that we are placing on them to keep them healthy. I understand that some coaches feel a kid is "out of shape" or could stand to "lose a few pounds," I just think there are better ways to accomplish this goal. We don't need to exhaust this child, who probably ate 400 calories today, by making him/her burn 1,000+ calories in a two hour stretch of the day.

Education is one of, if not the best, way to keep our kids healthy and help coaches understand why their athletes are getting injured 2-4 weeks into the season (if they're lucky).

Talk to the kids about nutrition. Help make sure they are getting enough energy before games/practices. Don't run them so much that they are losing muscle mass because their body has run out of other sources of fuel, so now it has to attack muscle tissue.

This is how athletes get injured. Strength training needs to be part of the in-season workout plan. So many athletes want to get better, so they spend much of their off-season time working out to get stronger and build strength. Then, within one month of practices starting, they've already lost all the gains they made in the previous 6+ months because we aren't educated enough to know that our kids aren't eating enough and by running them to "get them into shape," we're actually breaking down muscle mass/tissue and increasing their risk of injury, decreasing their ability to focus during school/class, and maybe even causing them to dislike the sport all-together.

This is a heavy topic that has many different angles. If you'd like to learn more, or have something to comment on, please reach out to me. I believe Google still allows comments on posts, so you can do so there. Many of you will find this post because you saw it on Twitter, so you can comment there as well.

As always, thanks for reading.