Student Athlete Diets
Cade Robinson
PS101
Dr. Jenkins
3/9/2022
Blog Post 1
One issue facing student athletes today is unhealthy diets. Student athletes have many reasons that they eat unhealthy. One big reason is time and money. Between class, practice, homework, and sleep there is not much time in the day to make/get food. This time crunch means that athletes are more likely to end up eating fast food, unhealthy snacks, or not eating at all. As student athletes our bodys need proper nutrients to stay at peak performance and to help our body recover from practice/games.
From personal experience I know that getting food as an athlete can be very difficult. One example is when the lacrosse team practiced when the cafeteria was open. The team practiced the whole time the cafeteria was open so it was impossible to get dinner at the cafeteria. This led to the lacrosse team eating fast food, unhealthy microwave meals, and in some cases just not eating. The times the cafeteria is open are not very conducive to athletes due to the fact most teams practice during the time it is open. This led to financial conflicts with do you eat out or do you eat the stale chips in your room. Some athletes don’t have the money to eat out every day after practice. Some people might say “Cook dinner it’s cheaper.”, but don’t understand that they might not have the time or facilities. Athletes need a good diet to stay healthy. We burn thousands of calories a day and need to at the least replenish those calories to stay strong and healthy. The food problem can lead to you losing weight in season, or gaining weight in season depending on your body type that could negatively affect your performance. Being hungry can also make your attention span lessen, which may negatively impact athletes in the classroom and on the field. If all you can focus on is how hungry you are while at practice, you can’t perfect your craft as efficiently. The same goes in the classroom. If all you think about is food you’re not actively learning while in class which can negatively affect your grades which could potentially make you ineligible. A bad diet can also make you tired faster. It can make your physical and mental endurance decrease which is bad for you on the field and in the classroom.
The lack of food for student athletes affects more than just them. It can affect their coaches, teachers, and schools too. For instance coaches if not doing well can be told they have to win a certain amount of games or they are fired. Well the negative effects of the bad diets athletes have can affect their play on the field. This might make you miss your goal and end up getting you fired. Teachers also fall into this category with coaches, if their students aren’t performing up to a standard they can get fired. A teacher can be a great teacher, but have a bunch of athletes in their class that struggle due to being hungry or tired due to bad diets which makes them pay less attention in class. Public schools can get money depending on how well their students do on generalized tests. A bad diet could cause students to have less focus on those tests which leads to less money for the school. Schools also get money from sporting events which if the athletes start under performing might cause less attendance at those events and cost the school money.
There are many solutions for these problems. Some schools have food that athletes can access any time of day. Some of these schools even have special cafeterias where they serve better and more healthy food for their athletes and provide costume protein shakes. You see this a lot in D1 sports where there is millions of dollars riding on these athletes to perform, but you rarely see this in D3 or high school sports. One solution the BSC Lacrosse team found was that we could swipe our cafeteria cards at lunch and they would box up a dinner that a team manager could pick up and give us after practice. There are many easy ways to fix the food problem athletes face that don’t require much money or effort at all. This can help fix some of the other problems that a bad diet can cause with focus, fatigue, and being in good physical shape. If schools just talk to their athletes and coaches they can come up with some easy solutions like the BSC Lacrosse team did.