Reevaluating Post-Game Snacks in Community Sports: A Health Perspective

Healthy habits are best learned from a young age. I often wish I had the knowledge I now possess back then — I could have prevented decades of chronic illness. Every small effort we make in our children’s early years can contribute to a lifetime of better health outcomes. Notably, Australia has one of the highest cancer incidence rates globally, both overall and for specific cancers, including bowel cancer in people under 50 (The Guardian, 2025).

As a mother active in community sports and a qualified health coach, I’ve long been baffled by the routine of giving children chocolates and lollies after games. Do professional athletes eat candy post-match? How can we promote good sports nutrition to kids if we offer them artificial treats at 9 a.m. on a Sunday? Where did this tradition start? And why has it become so normalized?

The Reality of Community Sports Culture

Australian families invest 5 to 10+ hours per week into community sports like soccer, basketball, netball, and football. Between training, match days, team events, laundry, and injury management, the lifestyle is demanding — and rightly focused on health and well-being.

Yet, amid all this, the post-game candy culture persists.

What’s Really in Those Lollies?

Take one of the most popular options — Allen’s Snakes. The ingredients include:

• Glucose syrup
• Cane sugar
• GMO Wheat-based thickeners
• Gelatine
• Citric acid
• Glycerine
• Artificial flavours and colours, including carminic acid, paprika oleoresin, and copper chlorophyllin

These snacks are high in refined sugars, artificial additives, and potential allergens. While not all additives are harmful in isolation, frequent consumption — especially in young, developing bodies — can contribute to a variety of issues, from hyperactivity to long-term metabolic stress (Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health).

Other popular treats, like chocolates, contain caffeine and added sugars that may promote dependency and negatively impact children’s energy levels, mood, and appetite.

At least 15% of ingredients don’t need to be disclosed.

While the list may look harmless to some those who understand food labels will see that these are full of GMO, DNA altering, MSG toxicity & chemical nuisances feeding and altering pathogens, creating potential cytokine storms down the track and accumulating to increase in chronic illness.

Leading by Example: My Team’s Story

As team manager of my daughter’s soccer team, I banned post-game candy. Instead, I offered leftover fruit from halftime, which the kids happily devoured. Fruit provides the natural glucose their cells need, helps replenish neurotransmitters and adrenals, and supports real recovery.

Unfortunately, the change met resistance — including from a parent who brought candy in protest. But my intent was not just to avoid harmful ingredients. I wanted to model proper sports nutrition — to teach our children what it means to nourish a strong mind, body, and spirit. Most lollies are filled with artificial chemicals that can stress the liver, rot the teeth, disrupt hormone balance, and weaken the immune system over time.

Food and Emotional Conditioning

Rewarding children with food — especially unhealthy food — sets the stage for emotional eating patterns. Studies show children who are rewarded with high-fat, high-sugar foods associate these with comfort, leading to poor dietary habits later in life (Michigan State University Extension). According to the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics, this practice can teach kids to value sweets more than healthier options, disrupting natural hunger cues.

Are Lollies Really Sports Fuel?

In countries with higher nutritional awareness in youth sports — like parts of Europe — children are given water and fruit, not lollies, during games. Recovery should prioritize real hydration and balanced refueling.

I once tested giving my daughter a small vegan chocolate post-match. It ruined her appetite, made her tired within an hour, and left her irritable. It was the wrong kind of glucose, delivered without the nutrients her body needed. Similarly, I noticed the same fatigue in kids who brought lollies to competitions—their energy dropped quickly, and fatigue set in faster.

In Europe where soccer is currently played by millions of kids they only get choice of water during the game, maybe fruit and an energy bar during or after.

My child would get home after the game, get out of the dirty clothes and enjoy a nice home Sunday “break-fast” refuelling vital glucose levels after physical activity. Somehow there seems to have been a misunderstanding as to what kind of glucose can be restored.

My goal is to give the best nutrition information for our kids to grow, develop and thrive and smash their potential. 

Role Models in Professional Sport

Athletes like Cristiano Ronaldo famously pushed away a Coca-Cola bottle during a Euro 2020 press conference, signaling the importance of healthy choices. Similarly, Novak Djokovic emphasizes wholefood nutrition, starting his days with lemon water, celery juice, and nutrient-rich smoothies.

These elite athletes aren’t powered by lollies — they rely on targeted nutrition to sustain performance and health. Shouldn’t our kids learn the same?

The Marketing Machine Behind Junk Food

Australia lacks strong regulation around marketing unhealthy foods to children. According to The Obesity Evidence Hub, there is no federal regulation protecting kids from food marketing. This gap leaves room for corporations — many of whom have financial interests in both food and pharmaceutical industries — to shape our norms.

As a former marketing student, I recognize how effective these strategies are. Lolly rosters aren’t innocent — they’re a cultural extension of brand loyalty cultivated from childhood.

We show kids that their participation  in community sports is a reward in it’s self, it is not further rewarded with unhealthy, highly addictive patterns creating future trauma. Every little bit we do will help our kids survive the super bugs around town. 

So many kids are chronically dehydrated, it’s not acceptable to use chemical laden drinks and candy when we know better. It’s ok if they want water and listen to their body but dead water won’t hydrate you. Putting lemon or lime in their water will make a huge difference. Some may even need some raw organic honey for additional glucose, repairing their adrenals and brain throughout the game.

Intrinsic Motivation Over External Rewards

When you offer an unhealthy treat after a match it’s promoting a ‘reward’ whereas a food like fruit is refuel. An article written by the Michigan State University found rewarding children with sweets is a plausible contributing factor to obesity. Food rewards can also teach children to ignore their natural hunger and fullness cues encouraging them to eat when they are not hungry. According to the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics “when children are rewarded with “special treats” they may decide that these foods are better or more valuable than healthier foods.” 

Eating patterns and food preferences children develop in their early years remain long into their teen and adult years.

It’s fun for you to include sweets and candy in their sometimes food without reward. Alternative rewards may include positive words of encouragement and praise.  Teaching them to preserver through frustration and struggle and then be acknowledged for their effort is the real route to happiness and self-confidence. 

Interfere with intrinsic motivation.

Author and education expert Alfie Kohn, in Punished by Rewards, argues that reward systems can interfere with intrinsic motivation. Children should play sports for joy, self-growth, and connection — not for a lolly at the end.

Praising effort, resilience, and teamwork fosters internal satisfaction. I like to say things like, “You must be really proud of yourself,” a phrase I learned from parenting expert Janet Lansbury. It nurtures self-worth and intuitive decision-making.

Australia’s lack of regulation of unhealthy food marketing to children is always going to be there, the real issue is how we as parents support it with our money.

Evidence Hub states that there is no Australian Government regulation to specifically protect children from unhealthy food marketing. 

Follow the money.

However as marketing was my bachelor’s subject, the deeply embedded culture to even have lolly rosters in clubs by the adults for childrens is the best marketing these international firms can ever have. Owners of Nestle are also the largest shareholders in pharmaceutical companies. 

What Can We Offer Instead? Wholefood Sports Snacks

Let’s reframe sports snacks as recovery fuel, not a reward. Here are practical, nutritious alternatives:

Oranges quartered up these nostalgic half time snack provide… easy to eat being careful not to cross germs. 

Bananas easy to peel without washing hands, 76% water, packed with vitamins. Bananas are an excellent food for athletes as they can help replenish energy and revitalize the body instantly.

Watermelon or other melons; attractive to most kids, its an excellent fruit that hydrates, and cleanses the entire body quickly.

Clean health bars or date balls made with raw fruits and dried fruits like dates. Check out the Raspberry Crumble Bars recipe. You can find clean medjool date and coconut rolls at supermarkets.

Honey sticks raw honey provides a quick source of critical clean glucose to our cells and brain, repairs and rejuvenates with more than 200,000 undiscovered phytochemical compounds and agents. Plus, raw honey helps repairs DNA and is extremely high in minerals such as calcium, potassium, zinc, selenium, phosphorus, chromium, molybdenum, and manganese and kids love it.

Pure Maple syrup candy or products often make a healthy and fun choice too!

Coconut water is incredible after sports quickly replacing hydration. It is one of the highest sources of electrolytes known. It’s a natural isotonic beverage with the same level of electrolytic balance that we have in our blood.

Apples are a satisfying crunchy and sweet snack, go further and pair it with dates and celery sticks to give a nice adrenal healing snack! Adrenal glands take a beating in competitive sports this is just one way to restore and heal them! Taking specific herbs can also be beneficial. Apples have the ability to quench both an immediate and cellular-level thirst. Apples are also an amazing detoxifier and contain both malic and tartaric acids that help remove impurities from the liver and gallbladder.

Mangoes are an amazing exercise food because it provides your muscles with traces of sodium, much needed glucose and magnesium, feeling less of the burn.

Smoothies – specifically one full of vitamins minerals designed to detox environmental toxins like heavy metals, plastics, petroleum and much more. Nourishing kids adrenals after a game and building their neurotransmitters! Check out the heavy metal detox smoothie here which can also be made into popsicles.

Adrenal snacks – grazing and nourishing your adrenals is one of the most important keys to understanding health, no one wants a hangry child! Adrenal burnout can result in fatigue, weight fluctuations, loss of hair, low blood pressure, inability to handle any stress, body aches etc. See the list here. Glucose saturation, like grazing, is a key piece of adrenal recovery..If we wait more than one and a half to two hours to eat, and we don’t have. enough glucose reserves in our liver we set ourselves up for blood glucose crashes plus corrosive adrenal blends runnings through your body. Flooding the system with adrenaline, that’s supposed to be for survival not. everyday. This can quickly become damaging to your brain, pancreas, liver and other organs and tissues. Further it can be fuel to pathogens looking to take hold and proliferate causing neurological damage.

The Dangers of Gatorade

Gatorade contains artificial colors, sugars, and additives — some of which are banned in other countries. Instead, try:

Fresh young Thai coconut water, lemon honey water (ginger optional), cold-pressed watermelon juice with a queeze of lime, orange juice, eat a banana with your water, cranberry honey water. All of these alternatives offer real electrolytes, glucose and hydration.

Gatorade should come with a health risk warning, as it’s full of poisonous carcinogenic, substances of which some are banned in some countries. Gatorade’s ingredients: Water, Sugar, Dextrose, Citric Acid, Salt, Sodium Citrate, Monopotassium Phosphate, Gum Arabic, Natural Flavor, Sucrose Acetate Isobutyrate, Glycerol Ester of Rosin, Yellow 6.

I hope we reach a new level of health in community sports culture within my time.

Conclusion

I hope we reach a new level of health in community sports culture during my time. Candy has been used to lure kids for generations, and it’s time to raise our standards. Let’s stop using food as trophies in sports and learn proper sports nutrition early. For those wishing to see change in their clubs, please share this article with your club managers, committees, parents, and coaches. If you know of other good role models, please list them below!

**References:**

– Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics. (2021). The Impact of Food Rewards on Children’s Eating Habits. 

– Djordjevic, N. (2021). Novak Djokovic’s Nutrition Plan: What Does He Eat? 

– Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. (n.d.). The Nutrition Source: Food Additives. 

– Michigan State University Extension. (2021). The Dangers of Rewarding Children with Food.

– Obesity Evidence Hub. (n.d.). Food Marketing to Children in Australia.

– Sky Sports. (2021). Cristiano Ronaldo Removes Coca-Cola Bottles from Press Conference. 

– The Guardian. (2025). Australia’s Cancer Crisis: The Rising Incidence of Bowel Cancer in Young People. 
-Alfie Kohn, Punished by Rewards, 1993

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