Sept. 24, 2014
By Lexi Shurilla, fightingillini.com staff writer | @SusanAlexisS
Until recently, the NCAA only allowed schools to feed student-athletes one meal a day, five days a week, during the calendar school year. Within those rules, the University of Illinois only offered a training table meal to four of its athletic teams during the school year. Thankfully for all student-athletes at Illinois, legislation passed by the NCAA this past spring that deregulated student-athlete meals. With the changes, Illinois is now feeding all 19 teams within its Illini Fuel initiative; utilizing enhanced fueling stations to give student-athletes the opportunity to fuel their bodies throughout the day with proper nutrition and healthy eating habits.
Before Deregulation
Director of Sports Nutrition Chelsea Burkart (@IlliniFuel) is just starting her third year in her current role. When she arrived at Illinois, every school was allowed to make its own decisions within the legislation on how to handle student-athlete meal plans. Some schools might only feed football, while others might feed every team a training table meal. At Illinois, the four teams - football, men's and women's basketball and volleyball - were given the one meal a day and the only exceptions for the other sports was during an academic break where the student-athletes still had to be on campus for training or were in season.
"When I arrived, in speaking with administration at that time, I was told the goal was to eventually be feeding all of our teams," Burkart said. "But there was no timeline regarding when that change would occur. The initial approach was to grow the sports nutrition program in general from an athlete-education standpoint, with the goal of providing meals for all teams as something set off in the future.
"Those of us within the sports nutrition community expected this legislation to pass. We, as sports dietitians, have been involved with pushing the NCAA for a number of years to deregulate feeding. In the old system of only being allowed to provide one meal a day, you end up with busy athletes who tend to under fuel throughout the day and then binge on the single buffet-style meal that was provided in the evening. As you can imagine, that wasn't optimal for adequate fueling and recovery between training sessions."
New NCAA Legislation
There were a number of people who didn't believe that the new legislation would ever pass. It was a waiting game until the legislation was eventually finalized at the end of the spring semester in 2013, and Illinois was able to start doing the legwork for the new meal planning.
As soon as it passed, the Division of Intercollegiate Athletics decided it was going to take this legislation to the fullest that it could and feed student-athletes with enhanced fueling stations in the morning, at lunch and then a full spread dinner for all of the student-athletes at the end of the day.
"There was never a question regarding how our administration wanted to handle the new legislation," Burkart said. "From the beginning, it was made clear that we would be offering the same fueling opportunities to all of our teams. That aspect has made me so proud to be a part of this athletic department. It was a decision by the DIA that they would find the money to make it happen. I think what's separating schools right now is that it is a choice - a choice of how to handle the new legislation and the finances an institution is willing to invest in the nutrition of its student-athletes."
In the old legislation Illinois was allowed to provide fruit, nuts, bagels, chocolate milk and protein bars 24 hours a day, which was called a fueling station. The guidelines were very specific and the school could only supply things within the legislation. Now with the enhanced fueling stations at the Varsity Room, Illinois is able to add in deli meats, breads and cheese to make a sandwich, salads, oatmeal and yogurt, just to name a few options. So yes, Illinois is able to provide more, but at the same time it's not excessive, it's just enhanced so that student-athletes have options for grab-and-go meals.
"What the legislation says is unlimited meals and snacks incidental to participation," Burkart said. "It also comments that these meals are not to replace a meal plan for a student. We have to work within that. You don't show up for breakfast for a buffet. There are breakfast sandwiches and yogurt parfaits as some of the options."
The meals aren't categorized as breakfast, lunch and dinner. Instead they are morning fueling, midday fueling and dinner at night. The idea behind the fueling stations is to get the athletes the nutrients and energy they need multiple times throughout the day to keep their bodies in tune for their next workout, practice or game.
This system is not required for athletes, but obviously most of them take advantage of being able to stop by the Varsity Room to grab something for recovery on the way home or on the way to class. Burkart said that right now there are about 40 percent of athletes in the morning, 55 percent at midday and about 80 percent coming to dinner.
Morning and midday fueling stations are hosted in the Varsity Room and the meals aren't made to order. While some athletes do sit down to eat, most come in, build their meals and take it to go. With the dinner crowd being around 400 people, it's hosted in the Colonnades Club at Memorial Stadium, and is a full-fledged buffet with hot items, a carving station and make your own pasta station; anything to choose from to create a balanced meal, sit down and hang out with teammates.
Nutritional Value
To help athletes make smart decisions about what to put on their plate, one of Illinois' dietitians is at almost every meal. Burkart said the nutrition program in general continues to grow and the support from the University of Illinois has been amazing with expanding this vital program. Illinois is one of only 44 Division I schools that has a full-time sports dietitian and just recently added a second full-time position with
Katie McKinney transferring her role in the Varsity Room to work as a sport dietitian.
"We see our role as somewhat of an assistant coach within each of our teams," Burkart said. "Our job is to coach their plate and help athletes understand their fueling and recovery needs in order to maximize performance. We let the athletes know that we're there to give them feedback on how to make their plate better for performance; we're not there to be the food police."
It's encouraged for athletes to eat multiple times throughout the day to meet energy needs and drive metabolism. In addition to the two fueling stations and dinner every day, many teams have a pre-workout fueling station before practice. These stations come out of each individual sport's budget and each sport tends to offer something a little different. The dietitians give advice on what should be offered as an appropriate pre-workout snack, and help coaches and athletes understand what items are the best to eat an hour before training. For example, before football there is a table set up with bagels, graham crackers, pretzels, fruit cups and fresh fruit; simple snack things that are easy to eat.
Even with the new options, the carefully selected menu hasn't really changed with the deregulation. Burkart and McKinney are able to work one-on-one with student-athletes as well. They are both involved in creating menus for the Illini Fuel initiative that include carbohydrate and protein choices, and fresh fruit and vegetables at every meal.
For those times when athletes want to splurge a little, there's still sweet options like frozen yogurt with toppings for fun food but the dietitians encourage the athletes to follow an 80/20 rule. They should have the best food for fuel and recovery 80 percent of the time and then the other 20 percent there's room for treat food.
"We had such a short time between May and August to get started and put everything together to go from feeding four teams one meal a day to 19 teams, two fueling stations and a dinner," Burkart said. "It's been awesome so far. It's been everything we had hoped it would be. We're getting great feedback from our student-athletes and it has allowed us to do exactly what we hoped to do for all of them."
