"Exercise is king. Nutrition is queen. Put them together and you've got a kingdom." Jack LaLanne
It's a particularly pertinent time to go back to the next subject on my food in the curriculum list - sport. Yesterday the Olympics began - well the Olympic Opening Ceremony took place and I just wish I could have found a spectacular food related image - but alas not. So the above vaguely related image will have to do. We have also just had Le Tour de France, Wimbledon wasn't so long ago, and here in Oz the footie finals loom. But then there's always some grand, important sporting event happening somewhere.
There are so many food related things to do with sport, but do they appear in the sport curriculum?
In my day - definitely not. I hated sport. We had some kind of sport every day and I was bad at all of them, hence I was the one chosen last when it came to choosing teams - every term for every sport. Not good for self image. Well I guess I just had to signal my bias against sport.
That said I enjoy - maybe I should say enjoyed - watching some sports - not all, but some - tennis and Le Tour are probably my favourite spectator sports, and I certainly used to get all fired up over the Olympics. Not today. Indeed it's one of the reasons I don't feel truly Australian because the Australian nation is sports obsessed and sports heroes - everywhere in the world enjoy massive adulation. Well the elite do anyway.
And as, that header photo demonstrates, at least part of that success comes from food. The teaching of sport should therefore be an opportunity to teach healthy eating. I mean elite sportsmen and women are supremely healthy aren't they?
My long ago sports lessons were purely practical - we were taught the various skills, divided into teams and then we played, or practiced. Even on really rainy days when we couldn't play we did things like tests on the rules of hockey. Food was never mentioned, and actually there was not a lot about general exercise either - well health in general.
Today there is a Health and Physical Education curriculum which does actually have a food component which states that it includes:
"food groups and recommendations for healthy eating (including The Australian Guide to Healthy Eating)
nutritional requirements and dietary needs (including The Australian Dietary Guidelines)
food labelling and packaging
food advertising
personal, social, economic and cultural influences on food choices and eating habits
strategies for planning and maintaining a healthy, balanced diet
healthy options for snacks, meals and drinks
sustainable food choices.
I must ask my grandchildren if they actually did any of that, or whether they just played a sport. Because it all sounds good. Mind you I don't think that Health and Physical Education is compulsory for all - I think it's an option. It should be compulsory.
In the world of elite sport there is a lot of emphasis on food diet, fine-tuned to the associated sport and to the individual sportsperson involved. That began way back in ancient times, when the gladiators were fed a diet of wheat, barley and beans to bulk them up.
What a long-distance runner needs to eat is quite different to a shot-put thrower, a wrestler or a cricketer. And these days there is a vast range of technology to assess the appropriate diet. Mostly when you see this kind of diagram or the header picture, you will find it illustrated with all the kind of foods that we associate with healthy food - fruit, milk, nuts and so on. But is this what they really eat?
As an example, going back to Le Tour and those supremely fit cyclists who cycle for hours at a time, at very high speeds, without a stop, up and down steep mountain roads, or across wind-swept plains, in every kind of weather from high heat to pouring rain. Apparently they need 8000 calories a day - the men that is - and a normal man would need around 2,800. So how do they get those calories and how do they stay hydrated?
Well lots of pasta I believe, hearty breakfasts, energy bars, specially formulated drinks ... Basically lots of food. Some of it they eat before and after the race. Some is delivered to them at the side of the road at speed. Not really that healthy, but stacked with the proteins, carbohydrates, etc. that are required. It's an extreme diet and you would have to wonder at how they adjust when they finally end their cycling careers.
At the top of the game - any game in life of course - there is immense pressure, and in sport that pressure is all to do with the body and physical performance. I'm not sure what the split in achieving that would be but apparently there is a high percentage of athletes - 19% male and 45% female with eating disorders. Mostly not quite as extreme as anorexia or bulimia, but almost, and sometimes that extreme. We don't hear about that much. We just see those supremely fit and streamlined bodies and wish we could be like them. Well the young do, which is why they should be taught about all the issues involved.
That includes the issue of all the specialised foods and drinks and gels that have been devised for those elite athletes and that you can now find on your supermarket shelves. They are not all safe for everyday use. Moreover they are expensive. In general, according to a Deakin University researcher found that:
"the amount of misinformation on product labels was shocking and raised serious concerns for average consumers who buy these foods assuming they are nutritious and can be eaten as part of a healthy diet."
But get a sports star to advertise them and we will buy. Gatorade is one of those products and I have a vague memory of there being lots of bad stuff written about that. This is just one of their ads featuring a superstar of the sports world. There are many others - and for other products too.
Even worse however is when one of those superstars advertises junk food. Put a supremely fit looking superstar next to MacDonalds fries and drinks and we will buy. They must be alright therefore, mustn't they? So they're sort of mini burgers and chips but there are several of them and the ad implies these are just a snack anyway.
According to the ABC
"65 per cent of boys are more likely to choose a food product if a male sports star is featured on the packet, but girls were far less likely to be influenced by sports celebrity endorsements."
Well I always knew girls were more savvy, but perhaps it's just that they are not influenced by the food ads - put one of those sports stars in an ad for a beauty or diet product and the answer might be different.
It's pernicious, however isn't it, and I was pleased to see that in that Health and Phyisical Education curriculum there was a component on food advertising, labelling and packaging. So yes, sport, which is such an important and emotionally involving thing for the young - well for everyone really - is an ideal opportunity in the school curriculum to encourage healthy food habits, and to educate in how to shop wisely. Ironic isn't it, that it seems that to be at the top of the game you have to eat unhealthy foods and worry about constant perusal of your body from your coaches.
One last word on advertising. Whilst I was cruising the net looking for appropriate images I came across this. It seems that not only do we have to make sure our elite athletes eat the right food, elite animals have to as well. This is an ad for 'super food for sport horses'. So I'm guessing there are other specialist foods for other sporting animals, not that there are many of them - dogs are the only ones I can think of.
Going back to junk food however, one other thing to note is that most of the food consumed at sporting events, and available to buy at stadiums is junk food, and not only does junk food have the attraction that junk food most definitely does, it often has a sentimental attachment too - footy pies, hotdogs, chips and chiko rolls for example. So once again one has this uneasy combination of the perception of supreme health and fitness and food that is questionable. Oh and did I mention sponsorship? - e.g KFC and cricket. There is definitely a connection between food and sport - good and bad -and school is an ideal place to teach the potentially false perceptions involved when looking at elite athletes.
To end on a lighter note you could also watch Guillaume Brahimi do his thing on Le Tour, cooking his way along the route, which this year began in Florence and ended in Nice, with salade Nicoise. Now that's pretty healthy - the Mediterranean diet and all that. Not that many of the other foods on the route were all that healthy, however wonderful. You could bring a little bit of cultural geography into the topic anyway.
I gather the Olympic athletes are currently not that happy with food in the Olympic village. Another surprise for a country which is so famous for it's cuisine. They ran out of eggs and chicken and some of the meat was uncooked - well so the newpapers say. The Australians meanwhile, in their own little bit of the village have their own comfort foods - and coffee available. I wonder how much of that they are actually allowed to eat.
I'll give the last word on sport and food to Jay Rayner, who like me is not into sport - but sort of into health. Sort of:
"I go to the gym a lot. Sometimes I eat fish. There are nuts in my cupboard, and there’s yoghurt in my fridge. And sometimes, just sometimes, I eat chips. Which are delicious, even if they’re not healthy. Because otherwise, what’s the bloody point?" Jay Rayner/The Guardian
And if school, via sport, can teach you that sort of philosophy then that's a good thing isn't it?
POSTSCRIPT
Those years gone by - some of them Olympic.
2023 - Coconut rice - so many ways
2020 - Guinness - a pie and variations - from the digital archives
2018 - So much seafood
2017 - Is gluten free healthy?
2016 - Fibre and the human biome
Well as a sports player but non sports watcher, I think it is all about balance and that is especially true for one's diet. I am fortunate to have may own live in food specialist