September 2025

Reference: Deslippe AL, Bergeron C, Wu OY, Hernandez KJ, Comtois-Rousseau E, Cohen TR. “Where” and “What” Do Adolescent Athletes Learn When It Comes to Food Literacy Compared With Adolescents that Do Not Play Sports? A Gender-Based Thematic Analysis. Curr Dev Nutr. 2025;9(Sports Nutrition Special Issue):104525–34. Available from: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cdnut.2024.104525

Take home message

  • Teen athletes may rely less on social media for nutrition information than their peers who do not play sports, but the credibility of where they obtain information is not clearly regulated.
  • Athlete boys may have more confidence and perceived credibility in their knowledge of how to eat for sports than athlete girls.

Background

  • Knowing what to eat, how to prepare it, and where food comes from (i.e., food literacy skills) play a role in high school (13–18 y) athletes’ health and performance.
  • Research suggests that teen athletes rarely learn food literacy skills needed to make informed food decisions.
  • Research has demonstrated that experiences learning about food literacy skills differ with gender and sports involvement.

How the study was done

  • 33 interviews with teens (13-18 years) were conducted.
  • Teens answered questions about their experiences learning food literacy skills.
  • Half of the teens participated in organized (school and/or club) sports.
  • All teens indicated their gender identity (n=15 boys, n=14 girls, and n=4 non-binary teens).
  • Interview recordings were transcribed to text.
  • Text from interviews was analyzed to identify similarities and differences in themes across interviews from teens of different genders and sport involvement.

What the researchers found

  • Teen athletes suggested that social media and their peers were critical sources of food literacy information only 5% of the time, compared to 20% and 27%, respectively, among teens who did not play sports.
  • Two athlete boys talked about how they believed that they had the nutrition knowledge and food literacy skills to make decisions about what they ate without needing another source of information.
  • Athlete girls were the only group to mention how they relied on their romantic partners, who were boys, to learn about sports nutrition information and, specifically, protein powders.

Conclusion

  • Policy makers should take advantage of athlete boys’ and girls’ potential to rely on more credible sources of nutrition information (e.g., coaches vs. social media) to educate youth athletes on how to adequately meet their elevated nutrition needs for sport.
  • Athlete girls should be empowered to learn and trust their food literacy skills and ability to choose what to eat for sports performance to the same extent as athlete boys.