We must teach kids how and why they must fuel their bodies.
“Athletes:
More Food =
-More Strength
-More Speed
-More Power
-More Velo
-More Hits
-Stronger Strikes
Remember this next time you’re “too full” to finish a PB&J.
Put down the chips and Gatorade and FUEL yourself like an adult.
Your (sustained) performance hinges on it.”
-Ray Zingler on Twitter
I understand most kids don’t ‘like to eat’ and no, I’m not saying they won’t eat a burger and fries or their favorite candy/chips every now and then, I know they will.
What I mean by this is that most kids don’t like to eat calorically rich, nutritious foods, multiple times a day, every single day.
Most kids, if they have breakfast (many don’t), will have a child sized “protein” bar.
For lunch, they will have the 500 calorie school lunch or packed “food” that they pick at.
For dinner, they’ll have a few bites of chicken mom or dad cooks.
And yes, again, of course they’ll have doritos, takis, coke, and Gatorade.
But rest assured, because they ate 4 whole slices of pizza one time, they “eat a lot” but “just can’t seem to gain weight!”
Remember, you are not a product of what you do sometimes, you are a product of what you do all the time.
The standard tactic for most who want their kids to eat more/better is this:
“Come on, you have to eat more.”
And they don’t.
And that’s the extent of it.
Then what happens is, they don’t get bigger/stronger/more nourished, so then adults again say, “come on, you have to eat more” and the cycle repeats itself.
But what if there was a better way.
What if we could use food as leverage?
“Huh? What the hell are you talking about?”
Leverage.
What if we leveraged what they love: muscles, strength, speed, power, velo, hits, strikeouts, & etc. and helped them to understand that by fueling themselves properly they could increase the outputs and occurences of the above qualities?
See the reason kids don’t eat is because they don’t understand the value. They don’t get immediate feedback. This is why they only eat what they want, when they feel like they want it.
It’s a means to an end for most.
“I’m hungry, eat what I’m craving. I’m not hungry, don’t eat what I’m not craving.”
Again, decent advice for the 53-year-old woman watching her figure, but terrible advice for the developing athlete.
Food is fuel that drives performance in the areas athletes care about most.
We have to leverage this fact to teach them how to properly fuel themselves.
