Nutrition for Young Athletes - Ask a Nutritionist

Dishing Up Nutrition

Nutritional Weight & Wellness, Inc.

Nutrition, Self-improvement, Health & Fitness, Education, Health & Fitness:nutrition

4 • 818 Ratings

🗓️ 17 April 2025

⏱️ 17 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Got young athletes in your life? In this episode of Dishing Up Nutrition’s Ask a Nutritionist, Registered Dietitian Teresa Wagner tackles a great question from a mom wondering how to fuel her active teens. Teresa dives into what real food nutrition looks like for young athletes - from muscle-building proteins and energizing carbs to hormone-supporting healthy fats. She also shares snack ideas, hydration tips, and smart supplement options (plus a few not-so-great trends she’s seeing on the sidelines!). Whether your kid is on the field, in the gym, or just loves to move, this episode is packed with practical, doable ways to help them feel and play their best.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Welcome to Dishing Up Nutrition Ask a Nutritionist.
0:12.7	I'm Teresa Wagner, a registered and licensed dietitian with nutritional weight and wellness.
0:17.7	On today's show, I will be answering a nutrition question we've received from one of our
0:23.3	Dishing Up Nutrition listeners. Today's question is from a mom of athletes. She wants more
0:30.1	information on what to feed young athletes, how to help them with muscle recovery after athletic
0:35.9	events, and what vitamins and supplements would be
0:38.6	helpful. She has teenagers, a girl going through puberty and boys developing muscles.
0:44.9	And this question, while it resonates with me so much as I have a 16-year-old boy and a 13-year-old
0:51.8	girls, all of which are involved in athletics and have been for most of their lives.
0:57.7	And as a dietitian, whether I want to or not, I can't help but notice what foods are brought to the fields, to the gyms, and other areas of youth sports.
1:10.2	Gone are the days that I remember as a kid of orange slices and plain water to rehydrate.
1:17.3	It's been replaced with donuts at morning events and other sugary treats in the afternoons and evenings.
1:24.0	Packaged bars and crackers are the standard and artificially colored sports drinks are often present.
1:31.6	As the kids get older, the snacks, they change too, and unfortunately not always for the better.
1:38.8	Even some of the options I'm now seeing that are advertised as a healthy refuel option, these bowls full of fruits
1:46.6	and oats and superfoods and plenty of real food ingredients, which actually makes it seem
1:52.9	like a healthy option because all of the individual ingredients are healthy.
1:57.4	But altogether, these bowls have 33 to over 100 grams of sugar, depending on the
2:05.2	serving size. That's 8 to over 25 teaspoons of sugar per serving. This would send anyone,
2:14.1	including your child, no matter what their age is, on a blood sugar roller coaster.
2:20.3	The girls are drinking pink drinks from coffee shops and the boys' energy drinks, and vice versa, right?
2:28.3	With travel sports, meals between games are often fast food or at restaurants, kids ordering pizza, burgers,
	...

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