Final Source Map

What do young young gymnasts need to know about nutrition and what they need to eat to stay healthy?

Summer Arvanetes

“Nutritional recommendations and guidelines for women in gymnastics: current aspects and critical interventions“

Key Ideas

-"Due to the competitive nature of the sport gymnasts are pre-occupied with their shape, size and/or body weight (which is a competition criterion), while setting high competitive targets often under high pressure for continuous success." -"A comprehensive nutritional assessment is the basis for nutritional therapy and for the design of individually set dietary objectives for each athlete.”

-“Their body becomes their greatest "achievement"” -“During growth, energy availability should be in positive balance, beyond the typical daily energy intake needs and the total energy expenditure (basal metabolism + physical activity) because of the higher requirements of accelerated pubertal development and the needs for support and synthesis of new tissue” -“In most dietary assessment surveys, these athletes show a negative energy balance”

George C. Dallas, Costas G. Dallas, Evaggelos J. Simatos, Jeremy E. Simatos January 2017

Role in the conversation

One way gymnasts can go in the wrong direction with their health is to not have a good understanding of what they need to fill their body with. Also not knowing how food can have a big effect on you mentally as well as physically. In this article George C. Dallas, Costas G. Dallas, Evaggelos J. Jeremy E. Simatos explained how gymnasts can go through all sorts of things and looked at it and had more of a scientific way of explaining it. This article can be very good for learning what to eat and why to eat it.

Overview

My thoughts on this article were that it has a lot of facts and studies in it to prove why gymnasts need to eat a certain way. The vigorous training schedule is a cause for issues within dietary health. A lot of gymnasts have problems with eating in general or just don't have knowledge of what the sport they do does to their body. Having a good knowledge base on how the food affects your performance in the gym can help you do well. Gymnasts need to be educated so they can fuel their body correctly. This article can help educate young athletes.

"Nutrition For Gymnasts"

Key Ideas

Christina Anderson July 7, 2021

"Acommon meal pattern for competitive gymnasts might look like this: Breakfast, Mid-Morning Snack, Lunch, Pre-Workout Snack, Dinner, Bedtime Snack" “Some between-meal snack ideas: Fruit + nuts, Yogurt + fruit, Cheese + fruit, Carrots + hummus“

“Gymnastics is a high-intensity anaerobic sport that requires incredible strength, power, and yet also grace and artistry. Because gymnastics is an aesthetic sport, there are great risks of disordered eating due to weight/shape concerns.” “they need to be getting enough nutrition to grow, develop, repair, and recover from training.” “Many gymnasts face logistical challenges when it comes to meal and snack schedules. Practices are often 4-5 hours long and span at least one meal or snack, so careful thought and planning are needed to ensure optimal fueling.” “Gymnasts need a varied diet of food groups. The main food groups can be broken down into the categories of carbohydrates, protein, and fat.”

Role in the conversation

I think the role this blog plays in the conversation is being able to reach multiple audiences and it has a healthy way of teaching dieting. It has a very interactive feeling to it. This blog is different from my other sources because it gives good tips on what you can do to stay healthy and happy.

Overview

This blog is a great contribution to my source map. It has so much information and different branches for my audience to learn about my topic. There is information about all sorts of things that feed into gymnastics and nutrition. For this blog I want to focus on the fact that she talks about multiple things that can benefit gymnasts. I also love how her audience is targeted to not just gymnasts but the parents of them as well. She talks about the differences between “normal children” and young athletes. I love the fact that she gives tips about how to engage with gymnasts and how to teach them how to fuel their body right.

"Relationship between nutrition knowledge and aerobic fitness in young gymnasts"

Role in the conversation

Nazhif Gifari, Rachmanida Nuzrina, Mury Kuswari, Nabila Tri Hutami, Ayu Ghalda 01-06-2020

This article is very similar to “Nutritional recommendations and guidelines for women in gymnastics: current aspects and critical interventions“ by George C. Dallas, Costas G. Dallas, Evaggelos J. Simatos, Jeremy E. Simatos. These are both very educational on dietary knowledge. Both very science based and good for learning how food affects gymnasts bodies. This article by Nazhif Gifari, Rachmanida Nuzrina, Mury Kuswari, Nabila Tri Hutami, Ayu Ghalda studied nutrition knowledge, nutritional status, body composition, nutrient intake and physical fitness of young gymnasts. This is very beneficial because it shows that a lot of gymnasts actually do know a lot about nutrition. If we can make it a more popular thing for gymnasts to have an understanding of that would be a great success.

Key Ideas

"This study aimed to analyze the nutrition knowledge, nutritional status, body composition, nutrient intake and physical fitness of young gymnasts." "Athletes’ nutritional requirements are influenced by many factors, such as their nutrition knowledge. Adequate nutrition will affect the ability to select good food for athletes” “Based on their nutrient intake, most of the gymnasts did not meet the adequate nutritional requirement in areas such as protein, fat, carbohydrates, iron and calcium. “All of the rhythmic gymnasts were female but their nutrition knowledge was low, while female athletes are at risk if their nutritional requirements are not met. “

Overview

After reading this article, I found that there is a pretty high level of gymnasts that have knowledge about the food they eat and how it will benefit them. This study showed that if a gymnast does not know how to properly provide nutrients to their body then it will affect them in a vegetative way. It is refreshing to know the the study showed over 70% of the gymnasts selected for the tests had good dietary knowledge.

“Episode 73: Fulled Gymnasts Fall: How to help your gymnast with nutrition if they’re stuck, struggling or injured.”

Role in the conversation

Key ideas

“Because often injured, we have more time to work on nutrition, and right, there is a huge win because his parents are so incredibly busy” “To work on nutrition when your gymnast is injured because there’s not a lot they can do right. They’re not in the gym they’re not able to work on their skills and I think giving them a goal giving them something to focus on giving them something to be involved with, that’s really positive that won’t benefit their injury recovery but will also benefit their life out side of the sport.” “When you have a young nine to eleven year-old gymnast that’s training twenty five hours a week she easily needs 2,500 to 3,000 plus calories per day” “Just physically being at the gym from 8:00 AM to 3:30 with a 30 minute lunch break that just makes it really logistically difficult to get enough nutrition into your kid”

This podcast was able to connect with personal experiences that I know every gymnast goes through. This episode was about how you can really focus on your nutrition when you are injured witch is always very hard. When you are out of the gym your body reacts to the fact that you are not working out as much and this can affect your mental health as well. So I really love how she hit all the spots about how to talk to a young gymnast and how to get her started on a good diet plan. Good communication is key.

November 2023 Christina Anderson

Overview

While lissing to this podcast I really loved a lot of the topic points Ms. Anderson. She hit a lot of valuable point when it comes to how you can teach and learn about nutrition. Anderson talked from more of a parent point of view. She gave good tips for young gymnasts as well at parents with young gymnasts to to look at and think about.

Questions

Responses

1. How long did you do gymnastics?
2. How often did you train?
3. What were snacks you enjoyed that were healthy?
4. Did you have a meal plan?
5. What did you include in your meal plan?
6. Did you track your calories?
7. Did you ever have a problem with food?
8. Were you still able to enjoy your food even though you had to eat a certain way?
9. Are you glad that you had and have a knowledge base for food when?if you are training?
10. Are you happy with how you ate?

1. Ellie trained for fourteen years. 2.She trained twenty seven hours a week. 3.She enjoyed servings of almonds, raspberries, power/protein bars. As they contained good nutrients for her practices. 4.Yes, a balanced diet of protein and carbs. She also says good fats such as avocados and chia seeds. 5.Ellie included a good amount of red meat, chicken, rice, vegetables and again good fats. She went on a calorie deficit during her seasons so that she could have the best benefit of energy while also being light and bouncy. Out of season she didn’t have to be as diligent about what she ate but she says “It was still very important to me to stay healthy.” 6.Ellie said that she did track her calories but she started to get consumed with it and it would distract her from beginning healthy. Which led me to my next question... 7.She said that counting her calories started to make her over think about the food she was consuming. It led to her losing too much weight and affecting her performance in practice. She saw how it was affecting her so she did indeed stop counting her calories. 8.Ellie says she still enjoys eating in a healthy lifestyle even though she is not in the sport anymore. However she does feel guilty for being lax and not keeping up with a specific diet all the time. “Not being in the sport means not having to focus on your food as much,” she said. She also said “Although I have changed my mentality about getting good nutrients for my body will not” 9.She says yes, she is very happy with her knowledge base with food and how to stay healthy. She liked my idea of doing my project on this subject because more people knowing how to fuel their bodies would be very beneficial. 10.Ellies said she was very happy with the way she ate because it taught her how to be proactive and healthy not just for her sport but for life in general.

Responses

Questions

Overview

In this interview I talked to one of my close friends Ellie about her journey with food and her sport. I really enjoyed learning about what she focused on while doing the sport she loves. I like that she gave tips on what she ate and how that may help other young athletes know what they can do to eat well. This interview shows a direct contact with somebody who had to learn how to eat well for themselves and their sport. This interview created a hands-on source for my audience to get a better understanding and good perspective.

"Interview with Ellie: Her food journey"

Summer Arvanetes 2/17/2024

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