TrueSport: February 2020

How to boost your athlete's immunity this flu season

Cold and flu season is here, and it can be a struggle to keep your young athlete healthy as their friends and classmates start getting sick. As all sport parents know, a good defense requires a good offense, so here are a few simple nutritional tips to help boost your child's immunity this season and hopefully keep them in school and in sport.  

Add more colors

Fruits and vegetables can be powerful medicine. TrueSport Expert Kristen Ziesmer, a registered dietitian and board-certified specialist in sports dietetics, recommends eating at least five servings of fruits and vegetables daily from all the colors of the rainbow -- preferably, two fruits and three vegetables.

This helps ensure that your child is getting the vitamins they need to stay healthy: vitamins A, C and E are all critical to a high-functioning immune system.  

Add zinc-containing foods

Researchers have found that zinc can boost immune function in children, yet globally, one in six people are deficient in the mineral. Foods high in zinc include red meat, shellfish, chickpeas, lentils, hemp seeds, cashews and dairy. If you have a picky eater, try these delicious options:

• Granola or oatmeal with low-fat milk
• DIY trail mix: Cheerios, raisins, peanuts
• Peanut butter on whole grain bread
• Turkey, ham or roast beef sandwich on whole grain bread
• Hamburger on a whole grain bun

Limit processed foods

The Cleveland Clinic also recommends limiting processed foods for your young athlete, as the gut bacteria that thrive on highly-processed sugars aren't as immune-system-boosting as the bacteria that thrive on a healthier, high-fiber diet. 

Ziesmer recommends limiting processed foods since they are high in sugar and low in fiber, protein, vitamins and antioxidants. She states, "The low fiber content is problematic for the gut microbiome because the good bacteria are not receiving the food they need to thrive. Instead, the bad bacteria feed on the sugars in processed foods and multiply at a rate that outnumber the good bacteria. As a result, it can weaken the immune system." 

Encourage your athlete to consume more whole foods, including brightly colored fruits and veggies, as well as zinc-rich foods.  

Add pre and probiotic-rich foods

Probiotics -- live, helpful bacteria that are naturally found in your body, can also help boost a child's immunity during cold and flu season. A recent study on allergy prevention and treatment shows a decrease in upper respiratory infections in people using probiotics, and they can guard against viral infections. Rather than popping a pill, introduce fermented foods like sauerkraut, kefir, yogurt, kombucha and kimchi. If you have a picky eater, consult your family physician to get a recommendation on whether a probiotic is right for your child. 

Ziesmer adds, "Prebiotics provide probiotics with food. These include foods like bananas, garlic, onions, whole wheat bread and asparagus."

Bonus tip: Remind them to wash their hands 

Proper hand-washing is the No. 1 recommendation when it comes to preventing the flu from spreading, so even with a boosted immune system, it's still important to help your athlete get in the habit of washing their hands frequently and effectively by rubbing soapy hands with warm water for at least 20 seconds. 

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While you can never completely safeguard against your child getting sick during the cold and flu months, with a few simple preventative measures -- that are all healthy habits anyway -- you can help boost their immune system. 

5 things to avoid when cultivating grit

Raising athletes to be resilient and persistent in the face of struggles or challenges is an important role for every parent, but it can be hard to know where to draw the line when helping athletes develop 'grit.' An athlete with grit, as explained by Angela Duckworth, the scientist who coined the term, is able to "sustain interest in and effort toward very long-term goals." 

Here are a five common mistakes that parents make when trying to instill that spirit in athletes. 

Avoid cultivating a winner-only mindset

It's easy to praise hard work and 'grit' when it's leading to successful games or competitions. Unfortunately, this means that determination and grit often end up feeling synonymous with 'winning' and 'being a winner' for young athletes. 

It's your responsibility as a parent to help them understand that it's possible -- and perhaps more important -- to have grit when things aren't going their way. 

A board-certified family physician and respected youth development and resilience expert, Deborah Gilboa, MD, explains on her website, "The most important lessons are learned in adversity, so we have to remind ourselves not to shield young people, but to enable and encourage their problem-solving and self-confidence."

At the end of the day, emphasizing an athlete's determination during hard times is more important to their long-term development than praising it when the athlete is finding success.

Avoid offering extrinsic motivation

Offering a reward like a pizza party for winning seems like an easy motivational tactic, but it can backfire. Even athletes who are initially intrinsically motivated can become focused on the material rewards rather than performance and grit for the sheer love of the sport. 

Gilboa agrees and shares, "The social science research on behavior change shows that rewards systems (usually called Token Economies in the literature) are effective for only short periods. Over time, the motivation decreases even if the rewards don't change."

"The biggest problem is this is not great preparation for the world ahead of our children," Gilboa states on her website. "When we want our kids to learn good habits, we need to expect it of them and link the mastery of a task to a new privilege. Kids are desperate to be acknowledged as older or more mature and this is a great motivator." 

Avoid pushing grit through injury and illness

Dedication is a great quality, but a parent can accidentally pressure an athlete to push through illness or even injury in the name of 'giving it your all.' Pay close attention to athletes for signs of injuries or illness, especially in athletes you know already display a lot of persistence without prompting. There's a line between persisting through a rough patch and pushing so hard that an athlete ends up injured and sitting out for the season ... or even longer.

Gilboa reassures parents that even without risking further injury to play, the athlete "can learn resilience -- by overcoming the adversity of injury. To do that, he needs you to see that he is facing something that is difficult for him. You don't have to understand why it's difficult or agree that it is. You do have to help him see the steps to recovery and praise him when he chooses to follow those steps."

Avoid promoting a fixed mindset

Telling your athlete that they are 'naturally talented' or 'the team all-star without even practicing' is merely enabling a fixed mindset. 

"Children who wither when confronted with challenges view their abilities as fixed -- once they fall short, it's very hard for them to rebound. On the other hand, kids who develop a "growth" mindset believe they can improve (in ability and intelligence) over time and with practice. They view new challenges as fun and exciting," explains Gilboa.

Avoid using nouns instead of verbs

A recent study showed that children persist better with difficult tasks when they don't have to figure out what it means to 'be' something. More specifically, "using verbs to talk to children about behavior -- such as 'you can help' -- can lead to more determination following setbacks than using nouns to talk about identities, for instance, 'you can be a helper,'" explains the study's author. 

For your athlete, that may mean asking them to "congratulate each teammate post-game," versus telling them to "be a good teammate." This also relates to talking about how a game went: The players aren't 'losers,' they 'lost a game.'
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Remember that helping your athlete see how hard work and determination payoff is critical to their current and future goals.

How to persevere as a team

While individual athletes might understand how to persevere and show grit while pursuing their goals, it can be tough for a coach to bring those lessons to a whole team since each player might have different goals, respond to different motivators, and be interested in sport for different reasons. But sports are the perfect chance to teach team-based grit, which can help athletes in sport and in their future careers.

Grit -- like perseverance -- has been defined as the tendency to "sustain interest in and effort toward very long-term goals."

Research has shown that the sense of belonging that comes from being on a sports team, along with a common goal, helps children understand the importance of 'respecting the rules and honoring responsibilities.' Angela Duckworth, the researcher who coined the term 'grit' in 2007, has found that focusing on a goal as a team can improve focus in all aspects of life.

But how does a coach bring grit to the entire team?

Develop a team mission statement

At the beginning of the season, gather the team and create a mission statement for the season. What does grit mean for the team? What do the players want to work on from a skills acquisition standpoint? What will success look like? What does it mean to have perseverance during practice or competition? Remember, young athletes take their cues from you, so it's your responsibility to help them understand that 'grit' doesn't simply mean 'winning' or 'never giving up.'

Help them define the team's values around grit but let them do the actual phrasing and writing. Giving your athletes ownership of this statement will help unify the team around their common mission.

Make sure it's not all about game day

If the only emphasis on your team is 'winning the game' or 'game day strategy,' it can be hard to push through rough patches and seasons that don't go according to plan. As you're talking about perseverance and dedication, make sure that language is used during practice, as well as on game day.

Setting a specific goal for each athlete to achieve at practice (a certain number of repetitions of a drill, for instance) and having the athletes work together to ensure that everyone meets that goal can be one way to make sure the players are persevering together all the time, not just on game day.

Don't pit your athletes against each other

It's hard to push through tough times as a team when each athlete is more focused on outshining his or her teammates than performing well as a unit. For young athletes, research has shown that comparison to others, rather than an emphasis on personal development, makes sports less enjoyable. Challenge the athletes in practice, but don't make them feel as though they're being 'graded' against each other.

But let them be competitive

Yes -- even with each other at practice. While you don't want to create a culture of comparison, you do want to allow teammates to feel competitive. Challenging each other to be better and persevering through the inevitable failure will help them at their next game…and for the rest of their lives.

Deborah Gilboa, a board-certified family physician and respected youth development and resilience expert, says, "Competition can be really great for kids. If you can teach them to treat each other respectfully, they can compete all they like."

"Competition teaches," explains Gilboa. "The winner learns how to win without over-celebrating and the loser learns how to lose without too much fuss. Kids monitor each other really well. They give honest, if harsh, criticism of poor behavior. They do not hesitate to call each other on cheating, bragging, whining. You do not need to intervene as they teach other these lessons unless the punishment is genuinely too harsh."

Change your view around winning

A recent study showcased that both girls and boys want to 'try their best' and 'work hard' during practice and in competition -- and that's what makes sports fun for them. That's right: Grit is actually fun! This research dispels the traditional myth that boys are focused on winning while girls are focused on friendship. Incidentally, winning only ranked 40th in importance in this new study.

Bearing that in mind, focus less on creating goals around winning and turn your focus to team-wide, process-oriented goals that the team can strive for together. Since process goals focus on personal development instead of the scoreboard, it's easier to instill a sense of grit and perseverance in the players, regardless of how the team is comparatively doing, because players can still meet goals and see progress.

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Keep in mind that introducing lessons of grit and perseverance during your team's practice will help your athletes look at challenges and obstacles as opportunities rather than risks.