What do Africa’s football stars and our children have in common?
In homes, bars and public places across the continent people are cheering on their teams in this year’s Africa Cup of Nations.
Nothing excites or unifies this continent more than football. People live and breathe the game. I have so many friends who are experts on their favourite players and can recite their statistics and history without blinking.
While statistics about the players are interesting, what really stands out for me when I watch a match is how disciplined and active the players are. Depending on their position on the field, a football player can run up to 12km in a game, mostly in short, sharp sprints. I don’t know about you, but even the idea of doing that makes my muscles sore.
While a rigorous training programme is a large part of where this stamina comes from, if a player doesn’t also pay attention to his diet, he’ll be out of energy by half time. Footballers know the importance of a good diet with the right balance of nutrients. Some teams believe the nutrition of their players is so important that they have nutritionists and chefs supporting the team with tailored meals and diet plans.
Even those of us without a personal chef need to start thinking like a footballer when it comes to nutrition — because we’re more like them than we think. Just like an athlete’s diet sets him up for a match, what a child eats in her first two years sets her up for life. The whole team suffers if a football player doesn’t eat right and isn’t able to perform. The same goes for our countries: poor nutrition can keep a child from reaching his or her full potential, and it can have an impact on our entire society by diminishing our productivity and driving up healthcare costs.
The need for healthy, balanced nutrition starts early — even before birth, when a mother’s nutrition during pregnancy impacts her child’s development. Her baby’s first hour is the next critical window. Breastfeeding is often called the “first immunisation” because mothers’ first milk is so high in nutrients and antibodies.
But as we all know, there is no silver bullet. It’s the days, weeks and years that come after the first hour when it’s most important to make sure the child’s food is healthy and nutritious. Just like an athlete, we must all remain disciplined about what we eat and what we feed our children. To help us do so, we need more research to inform our choices and markets that give us access to nutritious foods.
As a doctor, I sometimes wish that the whole world could be as united in our excitement about nutrition as we are about football. I know it’s a bit of a fantasy, but wouldn’t it be great if we cheered as loudly when a child hit her developmental benchmarks as when one of our favourite footballers gets that game-winning goal? Wouldn’t it be wonderful to honour the people who work to make sure kids get the right kind of food the same way we honour coaches? Why couldn’t we have a population that recites nutritional requirements for every life stage as easily as possession rates for their favourite teams?
I do see some reasons for optimism, however, when I look at the work being done. For instance, there’s a great organisation called Alive & Thrive that is working in Africa and around the world to help families gain the knowledge and resources they need to make sure their children receive the very best nutrition right from the start. And African leaders are joining forces through the newly formed advocacy group, the African Leaders for Nutrition, to combat malnutrition throughout the continent by supporting and enabling policies that focus as much on the quality of our food as in the quantity. Farmers and scientists, too, are helping by finding ways to maximize the nutrients in crops like cassava.
I know my obsession with nutrition will probably never be shared by the continent at large, but this year as our family comes together to celebrate our finest footballers, let’s take a moment to think about what made these athletes’ achievements possible.
