In today’s post I want to point out some of the differences between adult and child athletes. I’m pretty excited to write about this today because, if you know me or have worked with me, you know that I am super passionate about pediatric nutrition (nutrition for kids and teens) and love to educate on all things pediatric nutrition. I have loved it since the day I started my dietetic internship in Memphis to my first job at a children’s hospital to volunteering to write a kids’ nutrition and fitness curriculum for the Junior League to working with athletes today. I love navigating the extra level of complication that surrounds children and adolescents when it comes to nutrition. I love that you have to take more into consideration when treating and making recommendations for children and teens because the body and brain are still in such rapid phases of growth and development. I love understanding how the bodies of child and teen athletes are different from those of adults and, therefore, cannot be treated and guided as such.

Today I’m going to share with you four factors that I think are important to know that make the needs and recommendations of child and adolescent athletes different than those of adults. I hope you find this helpful as you continue to fuel your young athletes.

4 Ways Child & Adolescent athlete nutrition needs

Differ From Adult athlete needs:

1. Children are more efficient at using fat for energy. It is not until going through puberty that they become more efficient at using carbs like adults. 

• Putting into practice … Young athletes don’t need to do all of that carb-loading before big cross country meets or tournament days. Those pre-race carb-loading dinners are more for camaraderie than actual help with fueling. Keep enjoying the dinners if you love them (I loved these as a cross country runner in middle school & high school) but just know it’s more for fun than for optimizing fueling or giving a performance advantage. Of course, carbs are still a young athlete’s best friend, but the need for “loading” has not been proven to benefit this population of athletes. It does not mean you have to load up on fats either, but it does mean that foods with fat should certainly be present in their meals or snacks.

2. Children / teens do not cool their bodies like adults do. Children/teens predominantly cool their bodies via radiative and conductive cooling (dry heat dissipation) while adults rely on evaporative cooling (sweating). During training, young athletes’ bodies get more efficient at peripheral vasodilation while adults’ bodies alter their sweat rates. All of this means that kids and adolescents do not sweat as much as adults to cool themselves and, therefore, do not lose as many electrolytes as adults do with exercise.

   • Putting into practice … Keep this in mind before buying expensive electrolyte supplements or sports drinks for your athlete.

3. Children & adolescent athletes are going through growth spurts at different times and different seasons. It’s important not to alter food choices or restrict intake too much at the risk of stunting growth, delaying puberty or decreasing performance. What could seem like a harmless small reduction in calories or a shift in food choices to a young athlete could mean a period of unintentional underfueling that decreases performance, puts the athlete at risk of injury, or, if long-term, delays growth and development.

   • Putting into practice … It’s important to encourage all meals and snacks and all forms of carbs, proteins and fats with our young athletes. I like to encourage athletes to listen to their body (unless they are already chronically underfueled but that is a separate post for another day). They may be extremely hungry one week or one month and need a little or a lot more food. Then the following week or month their appetite is lower. That’s ok! They’ve got to allow themselves to fuel through those growth spurts, giving the body what it needs, not only for the growth & development, but also for their sport and class load.

4. Supplement benefits may not apply.  What I mean here is that most supplements related to performance (not talking about vitamins & minerals here) that have been found to be effective are tested on adults, not children and teens. Even if the supplement is third party tested, that does not mean it is proven to be effective or recommended for use in kids and teens.

   • Putting into practice … Always keep this in mind when thinking about protein or other supplements for the young athlete.

Working as a pediatric sports dietitian merges the specialty of pediatrics and the specialty of sports. I know it can be confusing to sort through all of the nutrition information and product recommendations out there, which are mostly geared towards adult athletes. If your athlete needs help with their fueling strategy and you’re not sure where to start or where to go next, reach out to me! I would love to schedule a call and chat to see if working together would be a good next step.  

That’s all for today. Happy Fueling!

Taylor