Sports Nutrition

Catalog description

What should you eat? When should you eat it? Why? Nutrition plays an integral part of our daily life. A healthy diet can protect us from a number of diseases, including heart disease and cancer. Nutrition also plays an integral part in an athlete’s performance, often making a difference between success and failure. Improper use of diet and/or ergogenic aids can result in poor performance. Students in this course will explore basic nutrition concepts, gaining an appreciation of the contribution of macro and micronutrients to a healthy diet and gaining an understanding of the importance of these nutrients as performance enhancers. They will identify a number of strategies for making healthy food selections, for integrating these selections into their lives, and for successfully maintaining a healthy diet. These concepts will be reinforced through the analysis of their own diets and the development of several new diets. The impact of excessive or deficient caloric intake on health and body composition will be determined. Finally, dietary supplements and performance enhancers are used by many people. Improper use of these can be detrimental to one’s health as well as adversely impact athletic performance. Strategies for identifying and using good and bad supplements/enhancers will be developed. (Prerequisite: SPHE295)