PBSI begins taking shuttlers’ nutrition seriously

Indonesia has been long known as one of the world’s badminton powerhouses, but perhaps not because of its athletes’ diets.

After a long time of letting shuttlers at the Indonesia Badminton Association (PBSI) national training camp take care of their own nutrition, the PBSI has taken a step forward to improve the athletes’ diets by undertaking nutrition reform.

“I tried to pay attention to my diet, but I was clueless. Then I sought information from other people around me. I usually end up applying the wrong kind of nutrition,” women’s doubles shuttler Greysia Polii said.

Greysia, who ranks world number seven with Meiliana Jauhari, recalled once she tried a diet only of vegetables, but became weak and sick.

This nutrition-clueless era has come to an end, as within the past three months, the PBSI has begun to take nutrition seriously and is running the camp’s nutrition program for the first time with the main goal being to raise athletes’ and coaches’ awareness on the impact of nutrition ahead of the 2012 Olympics.

The reformed nutrition program is led by Dr. Laila Hamid, who was briefly the camp’s nutrition consultant back in 2007.

“This is the first time the camp has hired a full-time sports nutritionist. Years back, we only sought advice on nutrition from a temporary consultant or the camp’s doctor,” PBSI secretary-general Jacob Rusdianto said on Wednesday.

Although the nutrition program has just recently formed, Greysia said she had already felt some improvement in her performance.

“I have more power and stamina. We were always told we had low stamina because of a lack of physical training. Yet, we saw no results after pushing ourselves with additional training hours.

“Now, after eating properly, my concentration and stamina lasts longer from game to game,” said the quarterfinalists of the Indonesia Open and Singapore Open Superseries, who loves eating Japanese and Korean dishes.

“The key is to approach each shuttler personally as each has a different character,” said Laila.

Laila’s duties include monitoring the camp’s catering service — from menu selection to cooking and serving — designing the personal nutrition program for each of the 64 national shuttlers, measuring and evaluating the shuttlers’ body composition on a regular basis, and monitoring shuttlers’ nutrition intake during day-to-day training and competition.

She says that unbalanced nutrition leads to unstable moods and lack of concentration, lower immunity and stamina, decreased body muscle and increased body fat and contributes to a higher risk of injury. But Laila said she hoped to shift one of the most common misperceptions that large-size shuttlers needed to lose weight.

“It’s not the body weight but the body fat that should be reduced,” said the doctor who hopes to extend the shuttlers’ golden age range by eight to 10 years with a balanced nutrition program.

Laila said her greatest challenges in the program was to raise the shuttlers’ awareness on the importance of maintaining a healthy diet.

Mixed doubles shuttler Tontowi Ahmad says he now tries to be better aware of what enters his stomach.

“I used to never think about carbohydrates, protein and fat. I just ate anywhere and anything,” said the shuttler who now enjoys eating at the training camp’s dining hall more than eating out.