Building a Balanced After-School Snack for Your Adolescent Athlete 

As the busy back to school season gets into full swing it can be difficult to find the time and energy to create balanced after school snacks for your kids, and yourself! In this blog we are going to walk you through our easy to use snack building system that will make creating balanced snacks quick, easy, and even fun! 

What exactly qualifies as a balanced snack? We always educate our clients that balanced snacks contain at least two nutrients, ideally three. A snack containing two or three nutrients ensures that it will be both filling and provide important vitamins and minerals. We want to focus on the nutrients for children and adolescent athletes: carbohydrates, fat, protein, and color (fruits/vegetables). 

Carbohydrates

Despite the anti-carbohydrate movement on social media, carbs are essential for children and adolescent athletes. Children and adolescents are still growing and developing. Continued growth and development for adolescent athletes require adequate energy intake, this includes at least one half of their energy intake for the day coming from carbs. When carb intake is restricted, especially for active children and adolescents, it can lead to health consequences, including stunted growth, and can impact bone development. According to a recent study on adolescent male soccer players who were part of an English Premier League soccer academy, training with low carbohydrate intake resulted in augmentations to bone formation markers and bone resorption. This means that inadequate carb intake in adolescent athletes can potentially impair bone and skeletal muscle development1. 

 

Now that we have established the importance of carbohydrate intake, let’s talk about some good sources of carbohydrates to include in your after-school snack! The primary sources of carbs that come to mind for most people are bread, pasta, and rice. However, there is so much more variety in this food group! Some carbohydrate sources the adolescent athletes we work with love for snacks are soft pretzels, chocolate milk, popcorn, cereal, yogurt, and more. Variety is key to keeping your teen athletes interested in eating their balanced snacks.  

Protein

Protein is an essential part of an after-school snack for adolescent athletes as it helps to keep them full while also contributing to their overall daily protein needs to promote muscle recovery and maintenance. While there is an anti-carb movement on social media, there is also a very strong pro protein movement on social media. As described at the beginning of this paragraph, protein is important for adolescent athletes, but a hyper focus on protein can lead to the displacement of other nutrients needed for growth, development, and athletic performance, including carbs and fat. When it comes to protein sources, most people think of steak, chicken, or eggs. However, there are so many more high quality protein sources. These include Greek yogurt, milk, cottage cheese, beans, edamame, chickpeas, and more.  

Fat

Often when snacks are discussed for adolescent athletes, protein and carbs are the only nutrients highlighted. Fat needs to be included with these other nutrients as it plays an important role in the health and recovery of adolescent athletes. The only time fat should be limited is immediately before a workout. Since fat takes a long time for the body to digest and turn into energy, it is not recommended to consume right before exercise since the body needs a quick digesting, readily available source of energy to fuel the exercising muscles. During every other meal or snack throughout the day adding a source of healthy fat, particularly fat high in omega-3 fatty acids, can benefit growth, hormone health, bone health, as well as help fight inflammation and promote recovery from exercise.  

 

Some sources of fat include olive oil, avocado, whole milk, peanut butter, butter, nuts, and seeds. Sources of omega 3 fatty acids include walnuts, salmon and other fatty fish, flaxseeds, chia seeds, and hemp seeds. 

Color

Color includes both fruits and vegetables. Fruits and vegetables are nutrient powerhouses! Not only are they high in fiber, which many adolescents do not consume enough of, but they are also high in vitamins, minerals, and antioxidants. For adolescent athletes, it is important to meet calcium and vitamin D needs for bone health. They can do this by including sources of food high in calcium like dairy and leafy green vegetables and foods high in vitamin D like eggs, fatty fish, and mushrooms. Fruits and vegetables are some of the most potent sources of antioxidants found in nature, even beating out antioxidant levels found in some supplements. Overall, we recommend our adolescent athletes consume 2-4 servings of fruit/vegetables per day to help them meet vitamin, mineral, fiber, and antioxidant needs! 

 

Now that we have educated you on the importance of including these 4 components in snacks you can use our snack building chart to build a balanced after school snack for your adolescent athlete!

– Snack Builder –
Pick 1 From 2-3 Columns

Carbohydrates	Protein	Fat	Color
2 slices of bread	3 oz chicken	1 tbsp olive oil	1 banana
½ large bagel	3 oz steak	1 tbsp Avocado oil	1 apple
1 cup cereal	3 oz turkey	1 tbsp coconut oil	20 grapes
½ cup cooked rice	½ cup beans	1 handful almonds	1 cup sliced strawberries
½ cup cooked pasta	½ cup chickpeas	1 handful walnuts	1 cup blueberries
18-20 mini pretzels	1 cup milk	1 handful cashews	1 orange
1 granola bar	2-3 eggs	1 tbsp butter	1 cup raspberries
1 English muffin	½ cup cottage cheese	2 oz cheese	8-10 baby carrots
6 oz yogurt	¾ cup Greek yogurt	3 oz fatty acid	1 handful spinach
1 cup low fat chocolate milk	1 pre-made protein shake	2 oz avocado	10-12 cucumber slices
8 oz juice	3-4 oz lunchmeat	1-2 tbsp chia seeds	10 bell pepper slices
½ medium potato (with skin)	2 cheese sticks	1-2 tbsp flaxseed	2 large celery stalks
12-15 crackers	1 beef jerky stick	¼ cup pumpkin seeds	1 cup pineapple
½ large soft pretzel		1-2 tbsp peanut butter
5 cups popcorn		8 oz whole milk
1 – 12 inch tortilla
½ cup oatmeal

References:

1. Stables R, Anderson L, Sale C, Hannon MP, Dunn R, Tang JCY, Fraser WD, Costello NB, Close GL, Morton JP. (2024). Training with reduced carbohydrate availability affects markers of bone resorption and formation in male academy soccer players from the English Premier League. Eur J Appl Physiol. 

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