Youth Sports and Eating too Much

Packerjohn

Just a thought after looking at some of the "Why are we bigger now" posts.

I have coached youth sports and have some observations. Growing up during practices and games, we had water to hydrate and there was no treat provided after the game.

Now I see parents sending a kid to a baseball/softball game with a liter of Gatorade. After the game the team parent is providing the kids with a drink and snack that is 400 + calories. The kid has consumed 600 calories or so, in a game that has maybe 5 minutes of strenuous exercise in 2 hours.

Found this old picture of how Gatorade used to be consumed. The 250+ pound player has about an 8 ounce cup.

endlessfall16

Today they literally pour a whole container on themselves!

(Well, stuffs are getting cheaper and cheaper)

Maxematics

A while back, I went to an end of league soccer game that my friend's niece had. Her niece did nothing but pose on the field the entire time. After the game, which her team lost badly, all the kids got cupcakes and a trophy for doing nothing. I asked my friend if this was the usual and she said yes. After every game the kids would go for pizza, ice cream, or one of the moms would bring baked goods. All the kids were told how well they did, awards were given to every child, etc. If I ever had children, I wouldn't want them to be coddled like that.

jemhh

We coached our daughter's soccer team one year and this is something that I noticed too. When I was a kid playing soccer, we had a half time treat that was the same every single week--orange slices and water. My sister had told me that the league her kids were playing in had parents bring treats and each week it was a Little Debbie or bag of chips or something like that plus a juice box. Since we were the coaches, we talked to the parents about a treat rotation and encouraged something more like fruit as a snack. We had a really good group of parents and none of them complained about that.

Kids today get "treats", meaning "junk food" so often. Yes, everything is fine in moderation but there is no sense of moderation about it. My daughter gets a candy award from her teacher nearly every day. After Sunday school at church there are cookies and cupcakes in the fellowship hall and then when she goes to children's choir 15 minutes later there's snack mix and some sort of sugar water pseudojuice drink. At her old dance class the teacher gave them a piece of candy after every class. It goes on and on.

In a way it is good because she has become immune to their allure--when she goes trick or treating she eats one or two pieces of candy and then lets it sit so we throw the whole lot away after a week or so. She's had a Lindt candy bar in the fridge for two weeks and takes a bit out of it every 3 days or so. But I can see how kids who either haven't come to see the treats in an "eh, whatever" way or whose parents don't watch how much of them are being eaten can end up with very unbalanced diets.