Feeding Division 1 Athletes
Recently saw this Omaha World-Herald interview with Nebraska's Director of Sports Nutrition, Lindsey Remmers. She discusses her team's role in getting Cornhusker athletes ready for competition. Nothing earth-shattering in the article; I just enjoy learning about different parts of athletic departments that don't get a lot of spotlight but have a big impact on what we see on the field.
I also think this article does a good job shining light on the positive aspects of collegiate athletics that numbskulls like Buzz Bissinger forget about when they write hackjob articles espousing the evils of division one football.
Lifeskills like learning to balance a diet and how to shop at the grocery are lessons that many of these students never received. My mom was somewhat of a hippie so I got the other end of the healthy diet spectrum but that's something I'd still enjoy learning more about from an expert.
Yeah, I can see how they haven't had quinoa, but salmon?
I had not tried salmon until pretty recently. Growing up, whenever we had fish, it was Orange Ruffie or something like that. The only time that I eat it now is when I go to a restaurant that has it.
I'm a terribly picky eater. I really don't like anything from the water and to be honest, have not tried much. The smell is enough to bother me to the point of not wanting to try it. Not too big on pork either but that's because it upsets my stomach more than anything.
If it smells or tastes fishy then it's not fresh.
A lot of these students come from low-income households. Not to mention that the article in question is talking about Nebraska -- fresh fish is not a hot commodity there.
Actually, isn't it a hot commodity out there? If there was a surplus, it's likely everyone would have had some.
the other pink meat....
Learning how to properly eat, and making a sensible proposal about changing the structure of college football to better reflect its role in University life.
That's an amazing link.
Haha
Hey, I try.
I do legitimately believe sports add value to any level of education to prepare you to succeed for life. Call me naive or idealogical, but teamwork, dedication, hardwork, accountability are important in pretty much anything. Skills like learning how to eat, exercise, and grocery shop are their more specific counterpart.
Nobody arguing about the future of college football would dispute anything that you wrote. Of course sports can teach kids and adults about those life skills, though it isn't absolute, and it certainly isn't the only way to learn about those skills.
The same skills taught in football can be learned by being a member of a band, the Geography Bowl, a med school study group, a church mission group, or simply by being in a family. The fact football also teaches and requires those skills is not unique, nor does it warrant football having any special place in the hierarchy of sports or group activities.
Really good article, and loved how she stated that the athletes get leaner, and less sick. Less sick = less missed practices and games, that is a point to drive home to the athletes. Once they realize how much of their performance is benefited by nutrition, I'm guessing they will listen, esp if they didn't have decent nutrition in high school.
I find it funny that more organizations haven't realized this sooner.
Big corporations are getting the point in the last few years only because healthcare insurance costs are rising so much that it's now cheaper to encourage and provide ways for their employees to live a healthier life than pay for unhealthy employees. Maybe they just hadn't found a good way to quantify it and insurance companies did the legwork and gave them a dollar sign.
What is being taught at Nebraska per this article is making corporate inroads. We actually have a program called "Energize Your Life", which the company uses to teach better eating habits, better choices at the store, different exercise combinations, etc... They even come to the regional offices from time to time and give cooking demonstrations, nutrition presentations and the like.
We also do submit to a physical each year to qualify for various credits on our insurance costs, as well as complete mission statements and sign off on credits if we don't smoke, for example. It seems like a bit of a headache on the surface, but it really isn't so much work (aisde from figuring out which meeting to duck because of the physical), and you learn quite a bit along the way, including something Remmers said here which turned me off to a lot of fast food years ago (though I break down and eat it now and again):
"One athlete ate a Jimmy John’s sandwich for 900 calories one day. The next day, she dined at the training table, where student-athletes eat on campus, and realized she consumed fewer calories but ate more food. "
It amazed me how little I could eat at some places to achieve calorie totals like that, and worse, in many cases, not even finish the meal. At one presentation, we actually received these booklets which broke down meals by restaurant and gave colors to each selection - green would be "acceptable", yellow would be "caution", and red marked the outright bad items (high fat, high calorie, high everything). Oddly enough, it turned out that KFC, Golden Corral and Chick-Fil-A had quite a bit of "green".
"very anti-vegetable" cornhuskers. Ironic no?
Well to be fair, husking corn is a fairly destructive/violent behavior wrt handling vegetables. Also, it is technically a grain...
Corn is a grain not a vegetable, so being anti-vegetarian and pro-grain actually makes sense.
the only vegetable I eat is the one right after I take a shot of tequila! We don't need no stinkin veggies
Lime is a fruit, isn't it?
You don't suck on broccoli after drinking a shot of tequila? Weird...
Purple's a fruit, I believe.
And really, I wonder how beneficial this kind of "training" or education would be to all college students? How many of them have really grocery shopped for themselves? I know I hadn't shopped for myself in high school. Been to the store? sure. Helped my parents make a grocery list? Sure. Cooked meals? sure. But done it all alone? Nope. One of the things you learn in college. Having the help along the way would probably be good for any student.
I think we should try getting some players on a gluten free diet. It's worked well for Novak Djokovic.
Since being put on a gluten free diet, he has been on an absolute tear!
The hardest thing for athletes, I've heard, is when they graduate and are not going through a ridiculous amount of calories anymore. The amount of food a football player eats in college would blow your mind, but they burn through it all. Then football ends and many of them struggle to adjust.