Family Nutrition and Community Sport: Insights and Opportunities

Community sport has the potential to shape nutritional outcomes and is a powerful setting in which to foster social change. This research examined the intersection between food and junior sport in conjunction with VicHealth and Football Victoria. A mixed-method approach was employed to gain a holistic understanding of (a) how community sport impacts family nutritional practices – the habits and routines that are formed around participation; (b) the community sport food environment, and (c) organisational barriers to change. The results demonstrated that community sport participation can be unsupportive of healthy eating, due to competing demands that impact nutritional decisions, and the contextual availability of calorie dense, nutrient poor options. Conversely, the findings have implications for interventions aiming to improve nutrition. In particular, the results provide insight into how community sport can be used as an entry point to shape healthy routines, provide nutritional education, and collaborate with parents in competency building.