What are the best ways and types of foods to help young female athletes understand accountability, hard work, and clean eating for sports like soccer, volleyball, and cheerleading?

Kelsey HigginsonSports Nutrition Coach and Founder at Clutch Day Coaching

Nutrition advice for parents of female athletes

27 Aug 2025 · 2 min

Watch on YouTube

1:55

In this YouTube Q&A, a parent (Speaker A) asks how to teach her 9‑ and 12‑year‑old daughters, who are training for sports like soccer, volleyball, and cheerleading, about accountability, hard work, and clean eating without using dieting language. The expert (Speaker B) responds by emphasizing that food should be framed as "fuel" rather than a weight‑control tool. She warns that labeling food as "clean" can trigger fear of food and disordered eating, especially in female athletes, and instead promotes a "strong over skinny" mindset. She categorizes foods into "premium fuel" (fruits, vegetables, whole foods) and "crappier fuel" (high‑sugar, low‑nutrient items), noting that occasional treats like a Twinkie are acceptable if not the primary source of energy. To make the shift manageable, she suggests starting small—having the child choose healthier options for one meal a day, encouraging accountability and ownership of food choices. Overall, the advice balances nutritional quality, psychological health, and practical steps for parents to support young female athletes.

Questions this video answers

Teach food as fuel, emphasize strength over thinness, categorize foods into premium (fruits, vegetables, whole foods) and crappier options, allow occasional treats, and start small by letting the child choose healthier options for one meal a day.

Chapters

I have 9 and 12-year-old young ladies that we're starting to train for soccer, trying to help them understand the importance of accountability and hard work, and more importantly, diet. What you put in is what you get out. What's the best ways and types of foods to help kind of help them understand? We don't use the words dieting, but how to eat cleaner, put clean fuel in your body and you're performing your peak. What are your thoughts about what types of food for young ladies training for sports such as volleyball, soccer, cheerleading, and so on? Thank you and keep up that awesome, great content. Good stuff.
So nice. My number one piece of advice is if you can teach them that food is fuel first and foremost. Food is fuel. That's the biggest hurdle to get over because a lot of times female athletes will hear that you need to eat cleaner, which they interpret as, oh, food is going to make me fat. And then it can kind of turn into more disordered eating, fear of food. That's something I'm really trying to spearhead and break the stigma of in this world. Um, strong over skinny. So if you can instill that, like, we want to be strong, our bodies deserve this fuel and deserve food. And so never limit food for your female athletes, even if they might be struggling with being maybe a little bit overweight. The best thing for them to still learn is that food is fuel. And then you can start breaking it down and talking about the different types of fuel. There's premium fuel, there's not as great fuel, is kind of the crappier fuel. I will never say never to anything. Like, if someone loves a Twinkie, there's a time and a place that you can eat the Twinkie. That being said, if we fill our gas tanks with not so great fuel all the time. Again, you, like you said perfectly, you get out what you put into it. So we want to look for premium NASCAR, F1 race car fuel, um, and that's how you're going to perform. And that's— they're going to feel a really good difference too. So an easy way to start is just start small. Like, start one meal a day saying, okay, like, what do you like? Like, what fruits, what vegetables? Like, let them kind of take accountability of it.