A Parent’s Guide to Fuelling Hungry Kids Right

This is a very common question we get asked. It’s completely understandable to worry about whether your child is eating too much or too little—especially when they’re constantly saying they’re hungry. Annoyingly, kids don’t come with a fuel gauge, so we have to get good at reading the signs.

How Much Energy Do They Actually Need?

The short answer: A LOT. Definitely more than we often realise. Young athletes burn a huge amount of energy, not just through training but also for growth, recovery and daily life (Hannon et al 2020, Arlsohn et al., 2011).

Even at complete rest, some players we’ve worked with burn up to 2,500 kcal a day—before adding in school, movement or football. This is a lot of food, and these needs are so often not met. This means that energy meant for growth ends up getting spent on training, with negative consequences for health, growth and performance.

This is why eating enough is so important. It plays a major role in all of these:

Research into Academy football players consistently shows that a lot of young players are underfuelling (Hannon 2021, Naughton 2016, Stables 2022). Not eating enough impacts health and growth and increases the risk of injuries. Underfuelling also leads to underperforming, which leads to under-enjoying sport. This so often leads to kids dropping out of football.

Our aim, as we’re sure yours is, is to keep kids enjoying playing sport for as long as possible and to reduce the dropout rates as involvement in team sport is so good for kids on so many levels.

Tricky when there’s no fuel gauge.

Here are some of the signs that they may not be eating enough:

If any of these sound familiar, they might be running on a nutritional overdraft—burning more energy than they’re consuming.

Put simply, the more they do, they more they need to eat. It’s a direct relationship and food really needs to be thought of as a key part of the training kit

So, give yourselves permission to feed them

If you find yourselves saying these often (how did we all turn into our own parents?) ….

“You can’t still be hungry” or “It will ruin your dinner” The chances are, they can actually still be hungry and it’s very unlikely to ruin their dinner.

More really is more when it comes to fuelling your young athlete. Food is energy to grow, play & enjoy.

References:

Hannon, M.P., Parker, L.J.F., Carney, D.J., McKeown, J., Drust, B., Unnithan, V.B., Close, G.L. and Morton, J.P., 2020. Energy requirements of male academy soccer players from the English Premier League. International Journal of Sports Nutrition and Exercise Metabolism.

Aarlsohn A, Scharhag-Rosenberger F, Cassel M, Weber J, de Guzman GA, Mayer F. Physical activity levels to estimate the energy requirement of adolescent athletes. Pediatr Exerc Sci. 2011;23(2):261–9.

Stables, R.G., Anderson, L., Morton, J.P., Shepherd, S.O., Close, G.L. and Hamilton, D.L., 2023. Training with reduced carbohydrate availability affects markers of bone resorption and formation in male academy soccer players from the English Premier League. European Journal of Applied Physiology, 123(8), pp.1725–1737

Naughton, R.J.(2016) ‘Daily distribution of carbohydrate, protein and fat intake in elite youth academy soccer players over a 7-day training period’, International Journal of Sport Nutrition and Exercise Metabolism, 26(5), pp. 473–480.