Snacks and practice

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I am not talking a general nutrition but rather what your gymnast eats prior to practice and/or during. We have a mom (dd is 12) who is having major issues with our gyms 'snack policy'. The policy is that there is no set snack time provided for any level and that no food may be brought out onto the floor. Food is not ever restricted and no child is ever not allowed to eat. The mom feels the girls are being set up for an eating disorder and that a meal break should be provided. I respect everyone's individual choices in regards to what they feel is best for their child but I also understand and agree with the gyms position. Practice is 4hrs, I load my dd up on a healthy, whole grain carb and provide her a healthy snack to eat if she needs to. I have tried to instill personal responsibility in her eating habits and choices ie my body tells me I am hungry so I will eat. The coaches say that no meal time at practice is pretty standard across the board. The mom has asked that the coaches make sure her child take a 12-20m snack break 2hrs into practice which I assume will met her needs.

I am just curious how other gyms or moms handle long practice hours that fall over traditional meal times.

 
Dd's practice starts at 5:30-9 so I feed her pasta right as she gets home from school. For the L4-6 there is a quick snack break 10 min. Ususally she has fruit or a power bar to tide her over till after practice which is when she has dinner usually something protien. L 7-10 I think have a quick break too for snack.
 
Well, lets see if i can answer this without rambling..probably not..lol.
At our gym, there is no food allowed out on the floor..water..gatorade...mineral water..ect is.
The gym tells you when you sign your kid up (even in rec classes) to make sure your child IS NOT hungry when they come to gym.
It is not their responsibility to feed your child. Although they are as accomatding as possible. They do have a set time for "breaks"..about 10-15 mins every two hours. Since my DD only goes for 2 hours she doesnt get a "break". My DD rides the tumble bus from school to the gym. Our wonderful Gov. Mike Huckabee decided that kids need to have their school lunch at 10:30 am and the school is no longer allowed to supply the kids with a mid day snack. The teachers can make a personal choice of letting the kids have a snack time, luckely Kadee's teacher does. She has a snack around 1:30. Practice starts at 4 so by time she gets to the gym, being 5, she is hungry again. The bus gets them in plenty of time that they get to the gym at least 15 mins before practice starts. This is tech. her "break" time. I make sure that she has a snack in her backpack when she leaves for school that morning. Normaly, an apple, a few small baby carrots, a granola bar, box of raisins..ect. They can eat at the snack bar...though they dont recomend it. It does have a few decent things, gatorade, juice, those big pickles (for some reason the kids LOVE those things) popcorn...but not much else..pretty much just junk thats there for the parents while they sit and watch.
So, the kids that do 2 hrs or less a day there is really no break. They can stop whenever they need to and get a drink..(they do regulate what comes into the gym as drinks..has to be water, mineral water, vitiamin water, gatorade, clear juice (apple, white grape ect.). They just have to ask to go to their locker (which is in the gym) to get a drink. Grab a quick drink then back to work. Kids that are there for 4 or more hours get a 10-15 min break every 2 hrs. They can do whatever they want..grab a snack, talk on the phone, go to the bathroom, ect. They just can not eat in the physical gym area and they can not step outside the building.
So in short order, No our gym does not supply snacks, but a snack time to be taken outside of the gym (preferably in the snack bar area) for gymmies there over 2 hours. Its your choice what you supply/buy for your childs snack. They gym does prefer you dont feed them the food they themselves serve at their snack bar. But something fresh, raw, or in its natural state (or close to).
 
Our girls get a snack break once their practice time reaches three hours. For the lower level girls, they take about ten minutes. The upper levels take about twenty.

I like the policy. It gives the girls a bit of a break. Plus, I enjoy listening to them laugh and socialize with one another.
 
I'm far from that strict on these issues, but having never had break myself unless practice was more than 5 hours, 20 minutes for 4 hours seems a little silly, especially when they aren't saying the kid can't take a break, she just needs to go eat her snack and come back. A 12 year old should be able to handle that, even a relatively inexperienced gymnast. But as most 12 year olds don't tend to be in their first year of team, I think this REALLY isn't an issue.

My eating times are all over the place, but I never ate dinner before practice growing up. We started before 4, so it would be too early. I had a long drive home and usually didn't get home until after 9, but my mom usually brought a snack to the car. Otherwise I wouldn't eat during a 4 hour practice. This, of all things, has about zero to do with any eating issues I've had. They're not even being told they can't eat. People always want to co-opt eating disorders to attack everything, but this seems pretty misguided. And trust me, I am a huge proponent of awareness over that issue, but it needs to be about things that actually matter and not putting energy into non-existent issues. But if the parent was that worked up about it for whatever reason, I'd give her kid a 10 minute break in the middle.
 
No breaks at our gym. DD had a 4.5 hr practice tonight. Had pasta before she went and no problems. She is 12.
 
my dd is 8 and has 4 1/2 hr practices and does not eat until the end of practice. She eats breakfast then after practice eats lunch. At first I was concerned about the length of time between eating, but she works hard at practices and it would not be good to have something on her stomach while tumbling. She does make up for it after practice and I don't restrict her eating in any way.
 
Our gym doesn't break for a snack either. I normally feed my dd a pbj on the way. They can bring a snack but a formal break meant 10 or 15 minutes to get back in the groove. Usually a handful of grapes or a bite of a protein bar when they grab their water gets them thru the 3 hrs. I remember feeling worried too until the reasoning was given.
 
We do not have food breaks for a 4 hour practice, Most gymnast have 4 hour practices for their senior gymnasts and I have never heard of a snack break being given.

I think it is a smart idea not to allow food into the gym, most gyms have this policy as well. Kids + Food = crumbs and mess, crumbs/mess + Gym = ants in the gym everywhere.

Also kids start thinking of gym time as a time to eat and socialize, many bring junk food. best to avoid it altogether.

However, it is possible that this girl is hypoglycemic, if she is then her body will break down the food faster than a normal child. Those with hypoglycemia have trouble concentrating and often become badly behaved when they are hungry. If this is the case I would make an exception to the rule.
 
She has been tested for hypoglycemia and no, she isn't. This is a parental choice as the mom feels her daughter needs food every two hours. I should stay that our gym doesn’t have A/C and we have a huge team 100+ and during the summer months they are much more lax over a break to eat and rest, as they should be.
 
My dd does not get a break for a 4 hr practice. I usually provide her a snack on the way to gym (she comes directly from school) and I give her 1 or 2 snacks to take with her. She will grab some pretzels or crackers while she is grabbing her grips or getting her wrist guards. Now they did get a lunch break when she was working out 6 hrs at a time over the Summer to me that seems reasonable. Going 4 hrs with nothing is not a problem, even for the younger girls (7/8 yrs old.)
 
I HATED the "snack break" at one of DD's old gyms. She began gymnastics at a well known gym where there was NOT a snack break. If they got hungry, they were to run over, grab a handful of something they had brought, get a quick drink nad get back to practice. It worked. There was no messing around, and the girls got right back into the swing of things. She switched to a gym that actually had an official break time during her four hour practice. It was a joke. The 15 min. then became 20 min, and then just dragged on from there. It literally made my blood pressure rise to see that my tuition was being used to allow the coaches a break time while the girls goofed off, their bodies cooled down, etc. These are older girls who can handle going 4 hours without a meal... especially if they're working out the entire time! Her new gym has no break time (yay!). I also make a bowl of pasta for DD when she gets home from school. She does just fine. Granted, after practice is over and she's cooled down, THEN she realizes that she's starving! I DO always pack her a bag of grapes, or other fruit that she can run to and grab a few if she's really hungry, but it rarely happens.
 
DD's practice is from 4:30-7:30 and at 6pm they break for "snack".

The break is long enough that some of the kids who need to go to bed right after practice could get their evening meal in if they put their minds to it. If DD needed to go to bed at 8, I would load that bag up and make sure it was eaten by the time she got home.

I usually give DD a small snack (half a sandwich, say) at 4pm and put several items in her lunch bag for the 6pm break (cheese stick, fruit, pretzels) so she eats more at 6pm than 4pm. If we had lunch early, say 11am and then got busy, I'll give her more of a full meal at 3:30-4 and then the lunch bag might just have water and a banana in it.

She eats again when she gets home.

It's not clear to me how letting the kids leave the floor for snack, as opposed to having a snack break, creates an eating disordered atmosphere. However, if her daughter already HAS an eating disorder, I can see where she would want her daughter's snack time structured and observed. Is it possible that her daughter already has an eating problem that the mom doesn't want to tell you about?
 
DDs weekday practices are from 4-6:30 and she does not get a break then, I encourage her to eat something on our way there but she rarely does..but when she gets home she will eat a good dinner because she is really hungry by then

On Sat the whole team practices from 8:30 -12:30 and they have a break tme..about 15 min I think. She usually takes a yogurt or some fruit, sometimes a pb sandwich. Half the time it comes home uneaten as she says she was not hungry
 
DD's practice is from 4:30-7:30 and at 6pm they break for "snack".

The break is long enough that some of the kids who need to go to bed right after practice could get their evening meal in if they put their minds to it. If DD needed to go to bed at 8, I would load that bag up and make sure it was eaten by the time she got home.

I usually give DD a small snack (half a sandwich, say) at 4pm and put several items in her lunch bag for the 6pm break (cheese stick, fruit, pretzels) so she eats more at 6pm than 4pm. If we had lunch early, say 11am and then got busy, I'll give her more of a full meal at 3:30-4 and then the lunch bag might just have water and a banana in it.

She eats again when she gets home.

It's not clear to me how letting the kids leave the floor for snack, as opposed to having a snack break, creates an eating disordered atmosphere. However, if her daughter already HAS an eating disorder, I can see where she would want her daughter's snack time structured and observed. Is it possible that her daughter already has an eating problem that the mom doesn't want to tell you about?


Is it possible, sure, anything is but I would say at this point it isn't probable. Our girls have known each other since they were 5/6 outside of the gym. This mom is very intense about food and I have seen her pressure her kid to eat when the child didn't want to (they are vegetarians). This is the kind of mom that something is always wrong, coaching, how they coach, when they practice, judging..etc. I have just learned to be an open ear for her and accept that she is simply a very melancholic parent. She even said she was going to take this issue to the media because she was so certain that our gym is the only one that doesn't allow the girls to eat. Which again, they are more then welcome to go anytime to the locker room... She just feels so strongly that a meal time should be in place that she equates that with withholding of food. I was interested in the prospective of other parents on this issue because to me it really is a nonissue, especially when the gym has been more than accommodating to her needs. They allow this child a 'snack break'.
 
DD practices for 4 hours. She's also in a training group of only 5 girls so the practices are very intense (no waiting in line for a turn, etc.). They are constantly moving and working. However there is no snack break and I don't think it's necessary. The gym does not allow food in the gym but the girls are permitted to keep a snack in the waiting area so when they go get water or take a restroom break, they can also get a bite of something, too. DD usually takes raisins or a granola bar or something and it's just enough to keep her going through her practice. Her coach does notice a difference in her energy level when she doesn't bring a snack but there is certainly no need to stop the work out to eat. In fact, I would think that small bites throughout the practice would be better on the tummy than a whole snack in the middle of workout.
 
If a 12 yo cannot handle a 4 hour practice with out breaking for a meal (and there isn't some medical issue that necessitates it) then she should do something else that could accomodate it...practice time is for practice...short (< 5 min) water breaks are ok but to expect time to dine in the middle of a practice (and as one poster said , time that I'm paying for) is unrealistic..
 
If a 12 yo cannot handle a 4 hour practice with out breaking for a meal (and there isn't some medical issue that necessitates it) then she should do something else that could accomodate it...practice time is for practice...short (< 5 min) water breaks are ok but to expect time to dine in the middle of a practice (and as one poster said , time that I'm paying for) is unrealistic..

I respectfully disagree. Gymnastics takes a LOT of energy. Just as much as track or soccer or basketball. Can you imagine doing four hours of soccer without some kind of energy input? I can't.

I'm not talking about sitting down to a four course meal with a wine selection. But I like that our gym gives the girls 10 to 15 minutes for a package of crackers or a piece of fruit. Our practices go through dinner time and lunch comes early in elementary school. I have time to grab B from school, drive to the next county over (she snacks in the car) to get to practice at 4:30.

We are the early out at 6:30. Drive back to our town and it's after 7. She eats lunch at 11. She would have a melt down if I didn't feed her in the car and when she goes up to team, she will need that few minutes to get her through her 3 hour practices.

If someone thinks she shouldn't be in gymnastics because of that, well, I guess that's a personal opinion but I can't imagine not letting my daughter take part in this sport just because she needs to eat a little something during a three to four hour practice.
 
My DD & her teammates practice 4:15-7:15. There is no snack break. They are expected to have something to eat before practice. My DD does not have much time between school & practice. Her bus drops her off at 3:40-3:45 and we leave @ 4:00.

She changes, eats a snack - grapes, cheese, ice cream ( I know, not good but she is VERY thin and can use every calorie I can get in her !! - she doesn't like pasta or peanut butter:() sometimes I will make her a quesadilla.

They get several water breaks but no food breaks. We eat dinner when we get home.
 

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