Q&A: Kansas City Chiefs Lead Dietician Leslie Bonci

Do you know how to properly feed and fuel your young athlete? This acclaimed dietician who's worked with all ages and at all levels of sport is here with some guidance.

Photo: Leslie J. Bonci MPH, RD, CSSD, LDN

It’s a typical early Saturday morning. Instead of chilling in their pjs and watching hours of YouTube shorts, my kids are scrambling to get ready for whatever the morning’s crazy sports schedule has on tap. Phew, we found two soccer socks that are clean and the same size, a monumental task in my house. Our son swears he left his basketball shoes in the trunk of the car. So far so good. Oh crap, what about breakfast? We’re aware we need to send them to warmups with something in their bellies but what that something is has become a regular source of marital conflict. My husband believes donuts or bacon or anything of any size or substance is fine. After all, they’re kids and burn through all this stuff in ways we would pay good money to mimic. Me, well I tend to be, how would the hubby put this nicely, stringent, believing that a smoothie with spinach and avocado and chia seeds and things that are weird and not palatable to the average kid is the answer. They can sacrifice taste for some proven nutrition, right?

Turns out the answer lies somewhere in the middle according to acclaimed sports nutritionist Leslie Bonci, the lead dietician for the Kansas City Chiefs. Bonci is a registered dietician and board-certified specialist in sports dietetics, and runs a consulting business called Active Eating Advice. She’s been a dietician for 40 years, and her work in sports has run the gamut from MLB teams to the WNBA to high school athletes. Bonci’s seen it all and knows it all.

Her meal plans for an athlete looking to recover from a soft tissue injury will be vastly different than an athlete nursing a fracture. She deals with diabetics, athletes with body composition issues, athletes who need supplementation, and every type of sports-related nutritional need under the sun.

Juxtaposing sport with proper nutrition tends to be overlooked by youth sports parents, at least this one. There are things I think I know but in reality, I’m just freestyling. Lucky for me (and all of you), Bonci took some time to share her expertise on several issues specific to our young athletes from the timing of meals to the role of sports drinks to body image issues. Sit back, dig in, and let all the wisdom from this brilliant dietician with a Super Bowl ring seep in!

Good Game: Before we get into the nitty gritty of what kid athletes should be eating, I’m wondering if you’re happy with how pro athletes like Tom Brady or maybe even Patrick Mahomes model behavior when it comes to nutrition?

Leslie Bonci: I do think professional athletes can use their platforms in very appropriate ways to talk about what goes into making a professional athlete. Of course, talent is one of those. Patrick puts in a tremendous amount of time and effort focused on reaching the expectations he places on himself to succeed. The food is supporting. It’s not just the diet alone that has made him a great athlete, but a diet, or lack of a good one, can certainly get in the way of a great athlete.

And I think the other part of it is when the athlete has the podium, what is it they recommend? Quite frankly, Patrick and Tom Brady, they’re both adults. The recommendations of what they need for themselves is very different from a 12-year-old or a 10-year-old or even a 16-year-old if their body isn’t finished growing.

It's also being mindful of what’s available. When you have $500 million, it’s a really different way of thinking about food than someone whose home is food insecure. And when we work with athletes, we always talk about what is an affordable plate with the realization that food insecurity is everywhere. Even sports drinks are expensive so if you’re spending your money buying those and don’t have much left, then your eating isn’t balanced. That can be very negative for a child who is still growing.

And then taking nothing away from Tom Brady and his talent, he’s a little extreme with his eating. There’s no reason for a kid to follow that. I would never have a child eat gluten-free unless they had celiac disease. There’s just too much, no, don’t eat that. It’s bad. Well, that’s not what the science says. Even with these athletes, who are they influenced by? Often it’s “their guy or their girl,” not a registered dietician, who might make a recommendation not based on science that has negative implications. I’m not going to make recommendations for something that might cause problems down the road. That would be counterintuitive.

GG: There’s a notion out there that kids can eat whatever they want if they’re playing sports and being active? Is there any truth to that?

LB: There are certainly some kids that are hard gainers, kids who just burn through everything going into them, so they need to increase their intake to make sure they get enough. However, there is still a lot to be said about quality. We have to give the body everything it needs. It’s like there’s an internal clipboard. Did we get protein? Yep. Were there carbohydrate-containing foods in the form of whole grains, fruits, and vegetables? Check. Was there some fat? Was there enough fluid? Did we do that consistently every day for the baseline for growth and development needs and then above and beyond that for the energy demands of sports. All of that is a necessary thing.

Secondly, I think sometimes people get too caught up in numbers. Numbers of grams of protein or number of calories. It’s distribution over the course of the day. If we have a kid who has an activity after school, did they have a snack before that activity? Did they have dinner close to when the end of their practice was to help them recover? If they have early morning practice, maybe they’re having breakfast before bed so their body isn’t on empty. Or conversely, kids who are on the ice rink at night because that’s when they have ice time, they probably don’t want to eat at 11PM, so are they having a later dinner and a little snack after practice so it doesn’t interfere with sleep? Timing is very important. You go into a health food store, and no one is talking about timing.

GG: What about the kid who won’t eat much or only eats something like hot dogs or white bread? Do you give them supplements to make sure they’re getting the right amount of nutrients in their bodies?

LB: Supplements are a complement to what we eat, not a replacement. Hot dogs are a form of protein. White bread is a form of carbohydrates. So it’s important to think about what might be missing from the equation? Can you add a glass of orange juice or another fruit so we have some produce that is part of that eating. When we turn to supplements, we’re missing out. What about cereal? There are a lot of cereals that are fortified with vitamins and minerals. At least there, you get the grain and milk to go with it instead of just a pill in a bottle that doesn’t provide anything above and beyond. What we’re looking for is overall nutrition efficacy.

Now of course there are kids who have a nutrient deficiency. There are kids who are low in iron or low in vitamin D and then it becomes really difficult to get them the nutrients alone and supplementation may be warranted in addition to what they’re eating. But not the other way around. And quite frankly, because we’ve got a lot of fortified foods, you can have a bowl of fortified cereal and cross off the majority of the list of things one needs. Maybe add a banana. That’s a great trifecta.

GG: Is there an age they need to be more serious about nutrition? And does biological gender come into play?

LB: We realize that everyone is growing at a different rate. Maturity is sometimes reached sooner in female athletes than male athletes, but the reality is for both, bones are still in the state of formation. So eating things that encourage bone health and laying down appropriate muscle for our middle school and high school athletes is essential.

But that’s often the time, especially in high school, where there’s too much influencing online with all these crazy recommendations of what not to do which can be tremendously problematic because then we’re shortchanging the body of nutrients at a time when the body is most vulnerable. So to concerns about bone health, well, we can do a good job minimizing bone health if we’re not getting what the body needs during those formative years. Or a lot of kids right now are opting to go plant-based. Eating plants is great but that must be done with education and guidance. It’s not just what we’re taking off the plate; what are putting on to replace it with?

GG: What are the ideals when it comes to game day nutrition? Like eating x amount of hours before a game starts?

LB: I always say this to my youth athletes, nobody competes seven days a week. But someone might practice five days a week so what you’re doing before and after practice is often going to be more important than what you’re doing on game day. Also, a lot of kids have nervous stomachs when they’re ready to compete so they don’t always eat well before.

When we look at meals, the guidelines would be the meal is 3-4 hours before. For high school football on a Friday night, if kickoff is at 7, you’re eating at 4 at the latest. For a soccer match on a Saturday morning at 10, you’re eating at 7 so you give your body time to digest and so it doesn’t feel like it’s going to come right up. The sooner it gets to the time of activity, the lighter the food needs to be. If we only have an hour, we’re talking about something like a half a sandwich. If we have a couple of hours, we may be talking about a six-inch sub or a pasta dish of some kind. A lot of teams do tacos because kids really like them. But even breakfast foods, which are really popular, like French toast and eggs or pancakes are ok because they don’t rest so heavy in the stomach. I usually try and back it up, if someone is playing over the weekend I really want them thinking about what they’re doing on Friday and even Thursday to get a little more into their meals so they have a little more in reserves in the event that they are a little nervous and don’t have much of an appetite on a day they’re going to play.

GG: That makes a lot of sense. Is there anything - a bagel and cream cheese come to mind – that you say kids should definitely not eat before a game or practice because it’s really going to bring them down?

LB: That bagel could be ok if you add a protein source like maybe a turkey and cheese bagel cut in half. I wouldn’t do things like fried chicken. There’s nothing wrong with fried chicken but because it’s high in fat it takes longer to leave the stomach and that doesn’t always sit well during activity and it’s not providing enough carbohydrates for fuel. It could even be pizza, but I’d do more of a plain or veggie and cheese because the meats tend to be very high in fat and that can make it very uncomfortable for the athlete during physical activity.

Healthy snacks, but where’s the protein?

GG: Now say a ten-year-old just poured their heart out playing in a game where they ran like crazy. They did a great job with nutrition in the lead up. Is it ok to reward them with fast food after the fact?

LB: Of course it is. But what’s really important is sometimes after an activity when a kid goes all out they don’t have much of an appetite. They’re tired. They just don’t feel like eating. But it’s really important to get something in. It’s not so much of a post-exercise meal as a post-exercise snack or an energy break. That could be something like a little bag of trail mix. It could even be chocolate milk. There have been some recent studies about the benefits of chocolate milk because it is a liquid and a carbohydrate and has protein. Plus, it tastes good and helps the body start to restore and recover from activity. It doesn’t have to be anything fancy or enormous. Even if in the immediate they have a quarter of a PB&J and then two hours later, they’re ready to have a meal, that’s also fine to do. And if that means we’re going to a favorite restaurant and getting a piece of chocolate cake, by all means have that piece of chocolate cake.

GG: Can you explain how a poor diet can impact performance in kids?

LB: We look at the tenets of growth and development and cognitive functioning. The body is really looking to optimize intake of protein and carbohydrates, of fat-containing foods that we call the macronutrients, of fluids, of the micronutrients which are vitamins and minerals and the phytonutrients, the plant nutrients. All of these have a role to play in terms of keeping cells healthy and decreasing your risk of disease.

Then the next thing is physique. In order to keep muscle and bone healthy, we have to optimize intake, especially in kids who are active. When you’re active you put more stress on the body and that can result in breakdowns. You have to account for the inside. What’s going to help me build? What’s going to help me restore and refresh and renew? That means we have to optimize protein intake. We need to make sure we are well hydrated to make sure we’re decreasing the risk of injury. We have to make sure we have enough carbohydrates so the body doesn’t have to go into its protein stores during exercise and then we end up in a deficit.

Then when we look at performance. If someone wants to be strong, if someone wants to be fast, if someone wants more energy, well, you‘ve got to make sure you’re well hydrated before you’re physically active. You also can’t exercise in a low carb state and expect the performance levels to remain high. All the studies have shown to the contrary. Carbohydrates are THE energy source for a sprint type activity and is 50% the source for more endurance type activities, fat that being the other 50% so going the minimal route on any of those nutrients is not helpful in any shape or form.

GG: What about nutrition impacting the mental side?

LB: We know what we eat impacts how our brain functions. It impacts our mood and our energy levels. It’s also important to realize all these red flags and restrictions out there like celebrities saying you shouldn’t eat this or that, that can really play with a kid’s mind. It even devolves into, ‘this is a how my body should look.’ The new Dove commercial is incredibly compelling and heartbreaking. It’s in young men too. I need to be bigger. I need to be buffer.

I don’t want there being battlezones at the dinner table, that’s not what we’re talking about. We should talk what food can do for me and how I can optimize food for sport. Always talk about food and fluid as your internal equipment. It doesn’t matter what cute uniform you’re wearing or the new soccer cleats, if you’re not well nourished, you’re not equipped to do what you’re about to do. To do your best, you need to focus on nourishment. This is not the time for deprivation.

GG: Any tips to get kids drinking more water?

LB: When we talk about water we’re talking about fluid and water is not the only source. There are some kids who drink milk. That’s an excellent source of fluid. Juice is a source of fluid. Lemonade and ice teas are sources of fluid, so is a smoothie. Even Jello and popsicles help with fluid intake. It doesn’t just have to be water.

That being said, water’s kind of bland. Unless someone is used to it, it can be harder to drink. Some people do infused waters where they cut up fruit and put it in the water to give it more flavor. Some people may not want a full juice, so they’ll do 50/50 juice and water. All of those things are part of the fluid for a day.

GG: But can I assume soda is a no-no?

LB: First off, the issue with carbonated drinks around the time of activity is that they don’t often feel good because they’re gassy. And a regular soda may have less sugar than a cookie, but the bigger issue is it’s not a hydrator that exiting efficiently through the digestive system.

GG: What about sports energy drinks like Gatorade or Prime? Do you see benefits?

LB: Sport drinks must be used properly and that’s after vigorous activity. It’s not, oh we moved for five minutes so we’ll have a sport drink. It’s when someone has been doing something hard for over an hour. Certainly at a high school level where you might have a two-hour soccer practice and you’re constantly moving. After 45 minutes or an hour would be the time to have the sports drink to help you replete. Or a swim practice followed by dry land, that would be the time to use it. But I think often it’s not used appropriately. Like kids will drink it with their lunches and it’s like, why. That’s not the time the body is moving.

GG: In closing, what do you want parents to most understand about nutrition in in athletes? What should be their biggest takeaways?

LB: A big one is that kids are not little adults. You may be doing low carb but that is not appropriate for a child who is exercising strenuously. Second, it’s that kids are vulnerable to the effects of sub-hydration. We all need to be the food and fluid coaches in our own homes. That’s important because sometimes in the throes of activity kids will say they’re not thirsty so they need someone to remind them.  Ideally, they would naturally eat and drink after practice but often we have to remind them. Text them, use a sticky note to remind them or best of all be there at the end of a practice. They need the reinforcement until it becomes habit.

And I think to encourage our kids to be body positive and really think about what their bodies allow them to do. It’s really hard to keep kids away from social media but really challenge them. They may say, ‘my body doesn’t look like that.’ Jump in and reminder your kid what their body allows them to do. How does your body feel when you’re out exercising? We really need to be attuned to our kids and if we hear something that makes us uncomfortable it’s worth it to seek other resources. We don’t want to let our kids go too far down that path because the consequences are not nice at all.

And finally, I’d say the attitude we have about our own bodies. Keep it in your own head. Don’t put it out there because we are role models for our kids. What we do, they see, and they may want to do as well.

For more of Bonci’s work and commentary, follow her on Twitter.