title: "Nutrition for Young Athletes" date: "2026-03-15" excerpt: "What your active kid actually needs to eat — before practice, after games, and every day in between. A practical guide for sports parents." category: "Nutrition" coverColor: "cream"
When Lily started playing competitive soccer at age nine, I assumed our existing approach to family meals would just keep working. She'd eat what we ate, she'd be fine, end of story.
Then she started coming home from practice wiped out and not hungry, going to bed without much of a dinner, waking up tired, and struggling through games on Saturdays. Her coach mentioned that a lot of kids hit an energy wall in the second half. I went down a rabbit hole of sports nutrition research, talked to a sports dietitian, and completely revised how we think about what she eats.
Here's what I learned.
Why Kids' Nutrition Looks Different from Adults'
Children and adolescents are doing something adults are not: they're growing. Their nutritional needs reflect both growth demands and activity demands simultaneously, which means they often need more of almost everything relative to their body size than an adult would.
A few key differences:
Calorie needs are high. An active child or teenager burns more calories per kilogram of body weight than an adult doing similar exercise. They also need calories for growth, which continues throughout childhood and accelerates in adolescence. Under-fueling is a real risk — especially for girls in adolescence, where under-eating is correlated with serious long-term health consequences including low bone density.
Protein needs are meaningful but not extreme. Young athletes benefit from adequate protein for muscle repair and growth, but they don't need the high-protein intake that an adult bodybuilder might target. For most kids, getting enough total calories from a varied diet naturally provides sufficient protein.
Carbohydrates are the main fuel. For aerobic sports like soccer, swimming, or distance running, carbohydrates are the primary energy source. Young athletes who restrict carbs — whether intentionally or because they're following an adult's dietary pattern — tend to perform worse and recover more slowly.
Hydration is critical and often insufficient. Kids and teens often don't drink enough during activity, partly because thirst response is less reliable than in adults. Dehydration of even 1-2% of body weight measurably impairs performance in young athletes.
Fueling Before Practice and Games
This is the area that made the biggest difference for Lily.
The goal of a pre-practice meal or snack is to provide carbohydrate fuel, some protein for stability, and minimal fat or fiber (which slow digestion and can cause discomfort during activity).
Timing matters:
- 2-3 hours before: Full meal is fine — lean protein, carbohydrates, modest fat and fiber
- 1-2 hours before: Lighter meal or substantial snack — mostly carbohydrates, some protein, low fat
- 30-60 minutes before: Small snack — mostly simple carbohydrates, very little else
Pre-practice meal ideas (2-3 hours before):
- Pasta with tomato sauce and a small amount of lean protein
- Rice bowl with chicken and a vegetable
- Sandwich on whole grain bread with turkey and a banana
- Oatmeal with fruit and a boiled egg
Pre-practice snack ideas (1-2 hours before):
- Toast with nut butter and banana
- Yogurt with berries and granola
- Apple with a small amount of cheese
- Small bowl of cereal with milk
Pre-practice snack (30-60 minutes before):
- A banana
- A small handful of crackers
- A squeeze pouch of applesauce
- A small granola bar (low fat, mostly carbs)
What we changed for Lily: she now has a real carbohydrate-based snack about 90 minutes before Tuesday and Thursday practices. Before this change, she was going into practice having not eaten since school lunch. No wonder she was hitting a wall.
Recovery Nutrition: The Window After Activity
Recovery nutrition is arguably more important than pre-activity nutrition and is almost universally under-prioritized with young athletes.
The goal of post-activity eating is threefold: replenish glycogen (carbohydrates), support muscle repair (protein), and rehydrate.
The timing window: There's a meaningful metabolic window in the first 30-60 minutes after exercise where the body is particularly receptive to refueling. This doesn't mean your kid will be permanently impaired if they don't eat immediately, but getting something in within the first hour makes a real difference for recovery.
The challenge: kids often aren't hungry right after intense exercise. The gut can shut down somewhat during high-intensity activity, and appetite can be suppressed for a while after. This is normal. But waiting until they're hungry might mean waiting two hours, at which point the recovery window is largely past.
We've found that getting something light in shortly after activity — even if Lily says she's not hungry — helps her feel better the next day. A small recovery snack first, then a bigger meal 1-2 hours later when appetite returns.
Recovery snack ideas:
- Chocolate milk (genuinely one of the best recovery drinks — the carb:protein ratio is excellent and kids will actually drink it)
- Greek yogurt with granola and fruit
- A small sandwich or wrap
- Smoothie with fruit and Greek yogurt or protein
Recovery meal (1-2 hours after activity):
- Full meal with lean protein, carbohydrates, and vegetables
- This is the meal where we increase Lily's portions, especially carbohydrates
Everyday Nutrition for Active Kids
Outside of the immediate pre- and post-activity windows, everyday nutrition for young athletes should look like:
Regular, consistent meals. Three meals per day plus snacks if needed. Skipping meals is particularly problematic for young athletes because they're trying to fuel both growth and activity from the same energy supply.
Carbohydrate-forward thinking. Grains, fruits, legumes, and vegetables should make up the majority of an active kid's caloric intake. This doesn't mean avoiding protein or fat — it means not accidentally restricting carbs because the adults in the household are limiting them.
Variety over perfection. A varied diet that includes plenty of whole foods is the single best nutritional insurance for a young athlete. Specific supplements or sports foods are rarely necessary for kids who are eating a varied, adequate diet.
Watch the signs of under-fueling. Fatigue that isn't explained by sleep, poor performance despite adequate training, getting sick frequently, or difficulty concentrating in school can all be signs that an active child isn't eating enough. These deserve attention.
What to Limit (Not Eliminate)
I want to be careful here, because the research on restrictive eating in young athletes is genuinely concerning. Energy deficiency in young athletes — particularly girls — is associated with poor bone health, hormonal disruption, and mental health issues. The risks of under-eating are typically greater than the risks of eating imperfect foods.
That said, some foods serve active kids less well than others:
High-fat meals before exercise slow gastric emptying and can cause discomfort during activity. This doesn't mean avoid fat entirely — just time it away from practice.
Sugar-heavy foods as everyday staples aren't ideal as the primary carbohydrate source, though they're fine in context. A piece of candy before a race isn't a problem. A diet where candy is the main carb source isn't serving your kid well nutritionally.
Caffeinated energy drinks are inappropriate for children and teenagers and have no place in youth sports nutrition. Hydration should come from water and, for longer activities, sports drinks if needed.
Hydration for Young Athletes
Kids don't regulate hydration as well as adults do, which means they need more deliberate management.
Daily baseline: Active children need more than the standard "eight glasses of water" advice suggests. A good rough target for active kids is roughly 1-1.5 liters per day baseline, more on activity days.
Before activity: 16-20 oz of water in the 2-3 hours before practice, then another 8 oz 20-30 minutes before.
During activity: 5-10 oz every 20 minutes of activity. For activities over 60-90 minutes, a sports drink (not an energy drink) can help replace electrolytes.
After activity: Drink to replace lost fluid. Thirst is a reasonable guide for this, but some kids need reminders.
We bought Lily a water bottle she actually likes carrying. It sounds trivial, but she drinks significantly more when she has a bottle she wants to use.
How We Use Juvelle for This
Managing Lily's training schedule within a family meal plan was one of the original problems that drove me to build Juvelle. Her nutritional needs on a Tuesday practice day are genuinely different from her nutritional needs on a Sunday rest day.
In Juvelle, Lily's profile includes her activity days and their intensity level. The meal plan automatically increases her carbohydrate portions on practice days and adjusts downward on rest days. The grocery list reflects the higher consumption on those days. I don't have to manually calculate what "more carbs for Lily on Tuesday and Thursday" means in terms of what to buy.
For timing, the app can flag when meals should be planned relative to scheduled activities. This has been particularly useful for game days, where kick-off might be at 10 AM and I need to have a pre-game breakfast ready at 7:30 AM.
It's not magic — I still have to cook and serve and convince Theo to eat the broccoli. But the planning piece is handled, which means I can focus on the actual feeding.
The Bigger Picture
The goal with young athlete nutrition isn't peak optimization. Most kids aren't competing at a level where marginal nutritional gains matter more than basic adequate fueling.
The goals are: enough energy to grow and play, enough variety to get the nutrients they need, enough protein to support muscle development, and enough carbohydrates to actually fuel their activity.
Most kids who are eating generally well and regularly will get there without detailed tracking. The main risks to watch for are under-fueling overall (especially in teenagers navigating body image), poor meal timing relative to activity, and inadequate hydration.
Get those right, and the rest tends to take care of itself.
— Amanda