Nutrition
To be a great athlete, you need to be a healthy athlete. Nutrition includes the foods athletes eat, how their bodies digest food and how their bodies use the components of food. Eating a healthy diet can improve athletes’ health and performance, on and off the field.
School of Strength: Snack Zone
Targeted to Special Olympics athletes in their late teens and 20s, this nutrition education campaign helps athletes learn about the nutritional benefits of choosing healthier snacks and how healthy snacks can fuel them to feel stronger on the playing field. The campaign includes videos featuring information and activities that highlight proper portioning and incorporating nutrient dense foods while snacking on the go or at home. In addition to the videos and the accompanying Snacking Playbook and Snack Tracker, a toolkit has been created to help Programs promote this campaign.
Special Olympics Nutrition Guidelines
These Nutrition Guidelines provide specific guidance and resources to staff procuring meals, snacks, and beverages provided at Special Olympics events. Please note that Programs can email fitness@specialolympics.org to request an editable version of the guidelines so that they may adapt them to reflect the foods and guidelines custom to their country.
Programs that plan to adopt the guidelines are encouraged to take the pledge here. We hope to learn from early adopters of the guidelines and recognize our early adopters!
Programs that plan to adopt the guidelines are encouraged to take the pledge here. We hope to learn from early adopters of the guidelines and recognize our early adopters!
Sports Nutrition eLearning
Targeted to coaches, the Sports Nutrition course will guide Special Olympics sports coaches on describing nutrition and hydration principles, understanding how food and beverage choices can improve performance and overall health, understand how the type of sport and time playing sport has on nutritional needs, as well as learning how different energy sources fuel recovery.