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Coach Noel talks about Nutrition for Children - Pt 2
Noel Sutton • 2 January 2020
NUTRITION FOR CHILDREN INCLUDING THOSE INVOLVED IN SPORT ?
In our series of posts on Health and Fitness by our friend, nutritionist, coach and general guru Noel Sutton this is Part 2 on the physical and nutritional needs of children involved in sport.
Extending the argument that children are not mini adults and that they are still growing vertically, should your child be on a weight loss diet? I would suggest that unless it is for medical reasons or you’re taking specific advice from a professional then the answer is absolutely not. You shouldn’t be removing foods and especially food groups without reason. Focusing on less junk food or processed food is obviously a good thing, encouraging more fruit and vegetables and a healthy relationship with all food is really important. It’s very easy though to set your child up with bad eating habits or a poor relationship with food, so be very careful around dieting while still growing.
I have spoken before about allergy/food intolerance testing. It is not reliable and to use it as a way to remove a food group from your child’s diet is very wrong. If anyone tries to persuade you that you need to test your child for food intolerance's in order to put them on their ideal diet, please don’t. It is deeply unethical, and you can report them. It seems obvious but to remove for example bread, pasta and rice from your child’s diet for no reason when they provide a significant portion of their energy needs is a worry. The tests put out many false positives and false negatives, as things stand, they can’t be relied on so please don’t use them to remove important food groups from your kids’ diet.
So, what can you do to improve your children’s relationship with food? And further to this how can you encourage them to engage with healthy eating?
The first thing you can do is to set the right example. Your children can see very easily when you tell them to do something but don’t yourself. Lead by example by eating plenty of fruit and vegetables. Their relationship to junk food might very well be set by what they see you doing.
By setting a good example, you then don’t need to, and I suggest you shouldn’t ever, reward your children for eating healthily. To offer them chocolate or a dessert for eating their veg, means that you are validating their opinion that there is something wrong or difficult with eating their vegetables. It should just be a normal part of daily eating.
Eating healthily shouldn’t be something you force. Lead by example, don’t reward but equally don’t turn it into a battle. Encourage, nudge them along you don’t need too put pressure on them, if they feel forced into it their more likely to try and choose something different.
You also don’t need to make healthy eating a bland and boring existence. Read cookbooks and recipes, take a cookery lesson. Even better teach your children how to cook. There is no better way for children to learn about new foods and ingredients than by cooking them themselves. One other good way of getting them to uncover new foods is to try gardening with your children. Engaging in the process of growing something, getting their/your hands dirty. Being able to feel and pick and smell real food from a garden or allotment will only increase the range of foods your child will try.
As with adults, children will eat what is accessible to them. If you have cakes, biscuits and chocolate around the house they’ll eat it. Make healthy food available and accessible all the time. Your children are much more likely to eat fruit if its in a bowl in the kitchen and easy to grab on their way past. You’re not forcing them or putting pressure on them, its just what is immediately available and accessible for them.
What your children eat during the day can be more difficult. If they have food that is prepared and cooked at school, you are at the mercy of the school’s canteen policy. You can make sure that all the food they eat at home is healthy and balanced and try to teach them how to make good choices. The alternative might be to prepare packed lunches, this isn’t ideal for some busy families, but does give you back some control or options if you do have time. This gives you the chance to be a bit creative, not necessarily with what food you prepare, but maybe in how its presented. A novelty lunch box, or cool packaging might be enough to keep your kids’ interest and excitement in what they’ll eat during school at lunchtime.
It takes 2hrs and over 40 components to make a great jersey which is why me and Al make the best jerseys we can, not the most jerseys we can.
Broadstairs is a coastal town on the Isle of Thanet in the Thanet district of east Kent, England, about 80 miles (130 km) east of London. It is part of the civil parish of Broadstairs and St Peter's, which includes St Peter's, and had a population in 2011 of about 25,000. Situated between Margate and Ramsgate, Broadstairs is one of Thanet's seaside resorts, known as the "jewel in Thanet's crown". The town's coat of arms's Latin motto is Stella Maris ("Star of the Sea"). The name derives from a former flight of steps in the chalk cliff, which led from the sands up to the 11th-century shrine of St Mary on the cliff's summit. The town spreads from Haine Road in the west to Kingsgate (named after the landing of King Charles II in 1683), a hamlet in St Peter parish[2] in the north, and to Dumpton in the south (named after the yeoman Dudeman who farmed there in the 13th century). The hamlet of Reading (formerly Reden or Redyng) Street was established by Flemish refugees in the 17th century.
A little while ago the guys from Bike Biz asked us if they could talk to us about Torm and our bike shop SP Cycles....so we did. Here is what we had to say - Article
We live in strange times, so I thought long and hard about whether to continue with my plans to work my way through the Pyrenees from Bilbao to Carcassonne. I didn't think it would happen, I thought restrictions would prevent it but when it became a reality I was ready for the break and it wasn't until I got on my bike outside Bilbao airport in torrential rain that I realised how much I needed the break. These kind of trips are a mixture of inspiration, exhilaration, determination, problem solving and a lot of amazing food. From crashing on a descent on day one, my wheel exploding at the bottom of the Tourmalet to the kindness and generosity of locals and ex-pats and the amazing scenery it was quite an adventure...I'll put some more details in subsequent blogs but always remember a trip into nature heals many things. This picture is day 1...we didn't take the easy way.
You may have tried every diet out there, but then put the weight back on and ended up where you started. It really is not your fault. The diet industry is set up and designed to perpetuate this problem, if they don’t educate you then you have no choice but to keep gong back every time you fall off the wagon. If you can relate to this problem, then Coach Noel Sutton a solution. See more at the link below: coachnoel.coach
BOOZE!! - This is the one I've been waiting for with trepidation. How does booze affect your fitness ?
This ones an important one in our series of posts on Health and Fitness by our friend, nutritionist, coach and general guru Noel Sutton on the physical and nutritional needs of children involved in sport. Children in Sport A few things have happened recently that have got me thinking and rethinking about this subject in detail again. I was asked to write something, evidence based on how to encourage good eating habits in children for parents. This, alongside some personal experiences of parenting recently and some extraordinary observations of what is being offered in the way of coaching to children locally encouraged me to think more widely. So, I wanted to split this into two parts, the first on kids in sport and then the second part more specifically on nutrition. The first concept that is true to both sport and nutrition is that we should understand there is a difference between children and adults. It seems an obvious thing to say but it is often overlooked, children are different to adults and shouldn’t just be treated as mini adults. As children we grow vertically, at a certain point that stops. As adults having stopped growing vertically, we are only going to grow outwards! The rules are different. Kids that seem to be excelling in sport at a young age, 11-15 are often treated as though they are not just mini adults but mini elite athletes. Let’s be clear they aren’t, they might be, and we all hope and want to prepare them to be, but until they are 17-18 yrs old we shouldn’t be getting too excited and booking accommodation for the next Olympics. We have a massive problem with participation in all sports, finding kids that will do sport at under 13 level is ok. Observing that participation through the next 10 years we see a catastrophic reduction in numbers. As a running coach I routinely watch a good volume of athletes running at under 13’s, the numbers at under 15’s drops off, by the time you get to under 17’s and then under 20’s we’re lucky to have a handful still competing. Evidence shows that this is a problem not just in running or athletics but all sports. As coaches and parents, we need to consider that even in this best possible circumstance we are fighting a losing battle, so it is key to try and do what we can stem the flow. If by the culture, we create we are adding to this problem we need to consider our motives. I overheard a disturbing conversation the other day about a young girl of 12 who was described as having the physiology of a 13-year-old. This was justifying the extra training and expectation that was being put on her. This for me sums up two massive problems. The first question I’d like you to consider is “What is the Physiology of a 13-year-old girl”? How is this different to the physiology of a 12-year-old, or a 12-and-a-half-year-old, or a 13 and half year old or even a 14-year-old? Is there a big book of Physiology with a page that tells us what a 13-year olds girls physiology will be? I’ve been involved in sports science and coaching for a very long time, I’ve got degrees in it and I’m yet to see this. I do see many, many unique individuals that share some similarities in development. I’ve seen many kids develop at differing rates at differing ages. Rarely have I seen two 13-year olds that are exactly the same in their development. So, we end up with a kid that has grown/developed early and is performing well. Maybe they’re stronger, got longer limbs, had more practice. At some point this will balance out, the other kids will catch up. My second point/problem is how do we manage expectation so that we don’t put so much pressure on them at 13/14 years old that they’ve just had enough by 17? We all want our kids to go to the Olympics and win gold, very few amazing 13-year olds go on to. The odd 18-year-old might though. A swim coach apparently has said quite openly that because he knows most of his swimmers will have given up by the age of 15 he will hammer them in the pool and create the best 11 year olds he can because it doesn’t matter if he breaks them, they’ll give up anyway! As coaches it should be taken for granted that we are teaching life skills through our sport. I use running as a tool to help mould kids into the best teenagers and young adults I can. Skills that help them negotiate school and exams, job interviews and University. At the same we develop their fitness and skills to prepare them to be the best runners they can be. There must be a happy compromise where we are developing our young athletes, to be the best they can be. Without overloading their young developing bodies, without putting some much expectation and pressure on them at too young an age that they have had enough by 17. Most importantly they are not mini adults, don’t train them as such. Secondly they are not elite athletes..yet ,so don’t train them as such..yet. It is amazing to see great performances as 13 or 14 years old, but we shouldn’t be getting excited until they are still doing it at 17 or 18 years old.
