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August 12, 2008

By Sarah Lemon

Mail Tribune

Parents of young athletes and players, themselves, can learn about eating for optimal sports performance at a free lecture Saturday.

Based on a 2002 book of the same title, "Feeding the Young Athlete" will equip families with recipes, meal schedules and practical knowledge of whole foods. Nutritious snacks will be provided.

"No powders or pills," says Cynthia Lair, nutrition counselor and co-author of "Feeding the Young Athlete."

Her daughter's participation in soccer moved Lair to develop a 10-step game plan for sports-oriented nourishment with nutrition and exercise researcher Scott Murdoch. The resulting book followed on the heels of "Feeding the Whole Family," which Lair published in 1997. Both books' philosophy mirrors Lair's 18 years of teaching around the topics of whole foods and mechanics of the country's food supply.

"There's no getting around that you have to invest some time and money in how you eat," Lair says.

Incorporating cooking demonstrations, Saturday's lecture shows families that they can do better than all the packaged energy foods and sports drinks on the market, Lair says. Participants will learn which foods give the most "bang for their buck" and leave with a list of 20 healthful, portable foods. The bigger message is overcoming barriers to eating well — namely, time and money —and encouraging a lifetime of healthy habits, Lair says.

"They worry that it's going to be too hard because they're going to have to cook and, yeah, they are."

In reality, preparing whole foods is much more economical than purchasing processed convenience items, Murdoch says. Families' most common mistake is failing to develop a menu plan or sound concepts of good nutrition, he says.

"It kind of snowballs."

The duo also will call foul on misleading product labels and hype around sports-oriented foods. Energy drinks, for example, aren't worth the calories and sugar, Lair says.

"Of course, we will have to be talking about hydration ... There's a lot of mythology around that."

"You really have to understand the ins and outs of the label," Murdoch adds.

A registered dietician who competed in triathlons for 25 years, Murdoch will explain how food creates energy. Lair's former colleague at Bastyr University — a Seattle college of natural medicine — Murdoch provided physiological explanations and data for "Feeding the Young Athlete." The 47-year-old Vancouver, Wash., resident has lectured on nutrition around the country since the 1980s.

When Lair isn't in the classroom, the 54-year-old improvisational comedian hosts the Web-based cooking show "Cookus Interruptus" (www.cookusinterruptus.com). Saturday's lecture is her second on the topic of nutrition presented for Asante Health System. The Seattle resident also will give a Friday talk titled "Raising Healthy Eaters" at 6:30 p.m. at Ashland Food Co-op.

Both nutrition educators say the childhood obesity and diabetes rates are driving the backlash against processed foods decades after they based their careers around a whole-foods mantra. Despite rising grocery costs, families today are spending a smaller percentage of their household budgets on food, compared with 1960s Americans, and a larger percentage on health care, Lair says.

"I would rather spend some time in the kitchen cooking than going to doctors appointments," she says. "When our children are in trouble, something changes."

But their lecture offers lessons for the entire family, Murdoch says. Sports is simply a vehicle for solidifying positive eating habits, he says. If feeding a young athlete properly is to work, the whole family must participate, he says.

"It's giving it attention and priority."

While admitting that the popularity of athletic supplements likely will never go away, Murdoch says Americans are seeing a shift in the paradigm of what being healthy means. People typically come to his lectures because they're interested in maximizing physical performance in the short term, he says, but they leave with a sense of maintaining health for life.

"The reality is performance has an extraordinarily ugly side," he says. "Like everything else, it's about a balance."

Reach reporter Sarah Lemon at 776-4487, or e-mail slemon@mailtribune.com.

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