[Objective]
Even though a dietary survey is one of the most effective tools for sports nutritionists to manage an athletes’ nutritional balance, not all athletes can receive a dietary survey. This study is to perform nutritional management on high school baseball players who could not receive a dietary survey about weight gain. The results indicate cases in which increase in weight was achieved within a reasonable range.
[Methods]
We provided modified nutritional management for 22 high school baseball players in the South Nagano region of Japan for three months during their off-season. Our nutritional support was added to their original dietary plan and it had three main components. Firstly, fish and vegetables plus 10–20 g of white rice were added to their original 230 gram portion. Secondly, 15 to 20 minutes of an instruction on nutrition was given once a week. Finally, we asked for parents’ cooperation to prevent the subject athletes from eating less at home.
[Results]
The 22 high school baseball players were able to gain 1.9 kilograms on average in three months with our nutritional support. Because their body fat percentage during this period hardly changed (only 0.1% of gain), it was thought to be due to increases in their lean body weight. Our principal component analysis revealed that their interest in vital minerals, the fourth major component, was significantly increased, especially among baseball players with a lighter weight. This had a positive correlation to their weight gain.
[Conclusion]
Our result shows that even though the baseball players could not receive a dietary survey, consuming 230 grams of cooked rice after their practice for three months helped them increase their weight. In addition, fish and vegetables that we used for the mixed rice have a high mineral content, which might be good education materials as side-dish for high school baseball players.
