Baseball Snacks Need a Nutrition Makeover

After one season of baseball with my son, I’ve become the parent I swore I would never be; the one who brings cookies and fruit snacks for the team on my assigned snack day. I wanted to bring fruit, but my eight-year-old wanted the kind of treats he had seen other moms bring. Besides, his logic went, none of the kids would eat the fruit, and it would just go to waste.

That may be a solid argument, but are we really just going to throw in the towel and let our kids run the show? If I’m the only one bringing fruit he may be right, but if we go back in time a little (and we don’t have to go that far) we would remember the days when bringing a nutritious snack was the norm and had a purpose: Giving the kids energy for the game.

Remember eating oranges at halftime for soccer? They were healthy and timely—they quenched our thirst and gave us energy for the second half. Imagine that! The only purpose the after-game snack serves now is to ruin my son’s appetite for dinner.

Providing team snacks nowadays seems like a competition.  I feel pressure, even if self-imposed, not only to appease my son, but to provide the same kinds of treats as other moms, and the ones that kids have come to expect. It all comes down to wanting to be a good mom. But more often than not, being a “good mom,” means doing the unpopular thing from our kids’ perspectives.

Even the look of snacks has changed. They resemble birthday party goodie bags more than anything else, and are packed with an assortment of processed foods and sugary drinks. They also take more time, thought and money to put together than a container of oranges, which is apparently a thing of the past.

But I am encouraged by what I have seen in the local schools and Cub Scouts, where there are plenty of moms and leaders who are starting to rethink these practices. We can pass on a valuable legacy to our children by being a little more conscious of, and conscientious in our food choices. If all of Glendora’s sports families brought  healthy snacks to games, or dare I say, the baseball and soccer leagues mandated it, then perhaps our children would adapt to the new norm, which is actually the old norm recycled.

In the meantime, I’m going to say “no” to bringing junk food for snacks, and risk being the uncool mom.