Saturday, Sep. 03, 2011

CASL's goal: healthy snacking for young athletes

I am obese at heart. I love fast food hamburgers and French fries, Southern fried chicken and every cut of beef, ice cream and milkshakes, and candy bars and soda. If I had a choice, my diet would be everything unhealthy, rich in fat and attractive to my taste buds.

I'm not obese in reality, however. I have somehow managed to mix exercise, healthy food and restraint into a balanced cocktail of good living. So far, I'm one of the lucky ones.

In Wake County, obesity is a big problem. More than 43 percent of 5- to 11-year-olds are overweight or obese here, said Michele McKinley, project coordinator of Advocates for Health in Action. The number jumps to more than 49 percent when you start looking at 12- to 18-year-olds.

Childhood is a bad place to start having weight problems. Fortunately, AHA and the Capital Area Soccer League have joined forces to help young athletes eat right.

AHA is a Raleigh-based organization that promotes healthy eating and exercise. Basically, CASL has agreed to support AHA's Sports Snack Game Plan. That's a handout for parents and coaches that promotes healthy food and exercise. AHA and CASL also are awarding grocery gift cards to teams that embody the new eating ethos.

Why target CASL's more than 800 teams of kids ages 4 to 18? They're probably getting plenty of physical activity. Don't athletes eat well already? Not necessarily.

"It's become part of this culture that we bring snacks everywhere," McKinley said.

There can be food and sport drinks galore after practice and games, and while some parents may bring healthy choices, others opt for crowd pleasers.

"For many seasons, it was one of those things ... where you have the parents who bring the cookies and the chips," said Darryl Miller, 36, who coaches two CASL teams based out of the WRAL Soccer Center in North Raleigh.

Miller's happy about the partnership between AHA and CASL - he's been lobbying for healthier snacks on his teams for a couple seasons.

"Basically, you see them having fun and afterwards you want them to eat healthy," he said. "You don't want the time they spent on the field to go to waste."

Sarah Martin, a volunteer with AHA, has a daughter and son who play on CASL teams. The general rise in obesity across the nation disturbs her, and she wants to do everything she can to make sure her children thrive, including getting people on board with the snack plan.

"I think every generation of parents wants their children to live a longer and happier life than they themselves experienced," she said.

CASL is an ideal partner for AHA. Some of the coaches I talked to, like Miller, were already ahead of the pack when it came to making sure kids eat right. And McKinley said the snack plan would only make it easier on mothers and fathers.

"It's very hard to be the parent who says let's not do chips or let's not do cookies," she said.

The information in the AHA snack plan isn't new, McKinley said. But this is the first time it's been paired with a sports league. Already, other leagues have expressed interest, she said, and the season has only just begun.

McKinley has two kids on CASL teams. Her goal isn't an austere diet all the time, just more culinary common sense.

"Nobody is saying that there should never be a treat or anything like that," she said. "But I personally feel like, 'Why are we finishing off an hour of practice with unhealthy food?' "