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Nutrition for Health and Development
Nutrition is an input to and foundation for health and development. Better nutrition means stronger immune systems, less illness and better health. Healthy children learn better. Healthy people are stronger, are more productive and more able to create opportunities to gradually break the cycles of both poverty and hunger in a sustainable way. Better nutrition is a prime entry point to ending poverty and a milestone to achieving better quality of life.

For every physical activity, the body requires energy and the amount depends on the duration and type of activity. Energy is measured in kcal and is obtained from the body stores or the food we eat. Glycogen is the main source of fuel used by the muscles to enable you to undertake both aerobic and anaerobic exercise. If you train with low glycogen stores, you will feel constantly tired, training performance will be lower and you will be more prone to injury and illness.

Nutrient Balance
Carefully planned nutrition must provide an energy balance and a nutrient balance.

The nutrients are:

• Proteins - essential to growth and repair of muscle and other body tissues
• Fats - one source of energy and important in relation to fat soluble vitamins
• Carbohydrates - our main source of energy
• Minerals - those inorganic elements occurring in the body and which are critical to its normal functions
• Vitamins - water and fat soluble vitamins play important roles in many chemical processes in the body
• Water - essential to normal body function - as a vehicle for carrying other nutrients and because 60% of the human body is water
• Roughage - the fibrous indigestible portion of our diet essential to health of the digestive system

Learning to eat nutritiously is not hard. The key is to

• Eat a variety of foods, including vegetables, fruits and whole-grain products
• Eat lean meats, poultry, fish, beans and low-fat dairy products
• Drink lots of water
• Go easy on the salt, sugar, alcohol, saturated fat and trans fat (Saturated fats are usually fats that come from animals)

Basic energy requirements (BER)
For every Kg of body weight 1.3 kcal is required every hour. (An athlete weighing 50Kg would require 1.3 × 24hrs × 50Kg = 1560 kcal/day)

 Extra energy requirements (EER)
For each hours training you require an additional 8.5 kcal for each Kg of body weight. (For a two hour training session our 50Kg athlete would require 8.5 × 2hrs × 50Kg = 850 kcal) An athlete weighing 50Kg who trains for two hours would require an intake of approx. 2410 kcal (BER + EER = 1560 + 850)