Appetite 58 (2012) 98104

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Appetite
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Research report

Nutrition and culture in professional football. A mixed method approach

Mutsumi Ono a,b, Eileen Kennedy a,b,, Sue Reeves a, Linda Cronin a
a
b

Department of Life Sciences, Roehampton University, Whitelands College, Holybourne Avenue, London SW15 4JD, UK
School of Sport and Education, Brunel University, Uxbridge, Middlesex UB8 3PH, UK

a r t i c l e

i n f o

Article history:
Received 2 July 2011
Received in revised form 10 October 2011
Accepted 12 October 2011
Available online 17 October 2011
Keywords:
Football
Soccer
Nutrition
Culture
Habitus
Traditions
Food choice

a b s t r a c t
An adequate diet is essential for the optimal performance of professional football (soccer) players. Existing studies have shown that players fail to consume such a diet, without interrogating the reasons for
this. The aim of this study was to explore the difculties professional football players experience in consuming a diet for optimal performance. It utilized a mixed method approach, combining nutritional
intake assessment with qualitative interviews, to ascertain both what was consumed and the wider cultural factors that affect consumption. The study found a high variability in individual intake which ranged
widely from 2648 to 4606 kcal/day. In addition, the intake of carbohydrate was signicantly lower than
that recommended. The study revealed that the main food choices for carbohydrate and protein intake
were pasta and chicken respectively. Interview results showed the importance of tradition within the
world of professional football in structuring the players approach to nutrition. In addition, the players
personal eating habits that derived from their class and national habitus restricted their food choice by
conicting with the dietary choices promoted within the professional football clubs.
2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Introduction
Association football or soccer is the most popular sport in the
world (Giulianotti & Robertson, 2004; Metzl & Michrli, 1998). Merit payments to clubs in the lucrative English Premier League totalled 160m in 2009 (Ley, 2009), with 1.4bn currently available
in global TV rights across 211 countries (Harris, 2010). The performance of top level players is, therefore, of vital importance for both
the clubs and their fans. Yet only relatively recently, has the world
of professional football begun to recognise the importance of
nutrition as an area that may enhance footballers performance
(MacLaren, 2003; Maughan, 1997; Shephard, 1999). What, when
and how much a football player consumes has a direct impact on
his football performance. Existing studies of football players diets
from a nutritional science perspective have tended to focus on one
or two specic elements. For example, a number of previous
studies have looked at carbohydrate intake in relation to physical
performance (Balsom, Wood, Olsson, & Ekblom, 1999; Hargreaves,
1994; Ostojic & Mazic, 2002; Williams & Serratosa, 2006) and protein in relation to post-exercise recovery (Nieman & Bishop, 2006).
However, it is necessary to consider food consumption and eating
habits as a whole because in practice professional football players
need to be able to choose the right food at the right time in order to
utilize it efciently.

Corresponding author.
E-mail address: eileen.kennedy01@gmail.com (E. Kennedy).
0195-6663/$ - see front matter 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.appet.2011.10.007

Football can be described physiologically as intermittent, highintensity exercise (Coyle, 1993; Reilly, 1997). According to these
previous studies, the energy expenditure of elite football players
is estimated at around 3550 kcal/day on average, and with a range
from 3100 to 4050 kcal/day for the lightest and heaviest football
players, respectively (Reilly & Thomas, 1979; Rico-Sanz, 1998). It
is also reported that the hardest training day and match day were
estimated to require 4050 kcal/day (range 28505250 kcal/day)
and 3800 kcal/day (range 33504750 kcal/day), respectively (Reilly
& Thomas, 1979, and Rico-Sanz, 1998). It is also crucial for football
players to consider the composition of their diet for its contribution to optimal performance. Of the total calories consumed, the
recommended balance for most athletes is 5565% of CHO (Clark,
1994), no more than 30% fat (Clark, 1994). As for protein, Lemon
(1994) suggests that 1.41.7 g per kg of body mass is required for
football players.
The aim of this study was to contribute to the existing research
on the nutritional intake of football players (Craven, Butler, Dickinson, Kinch, & Ramsbottom, 2002; Hassapidou, 2001; Maughan,
1997; Murphy & Jeanes, 2006; Rico-Sanz et al., 1998). Despite
research indicating that the consumption of an adequate diet can
play a signicant role in enhancing football performance, previous
studies have consistently indicated that football players fail to
consume an adequate diet for optimal performance (Hassapidou,
2001; Maughan, 1997; Rico-Sanz et al., 1998). These studies report
that football players regularly fail to meet their energy and
carbohydrate requirements (Hassapidou, 2001; Jacobs, Westlin,
Karlsson, Rasmusson, & Houghton, 1982; Maughan, 1997;

M. Ono et al. / Appetite 58 (2012) 98104

Rico-Sanz et al., 1998). If professional football is set to benet from

the results of nutritional science research, it is necessary to discover the reasons why they are not able to consume an optimal
football specic diet.
Investigating the reasons for food choice has not traditionally
been considered part of the discipline of nutrition science. Rather,
it is considered to be within the discipline of anthropology, sociology or psychology. Nutrition science has traditionally encompassed aspects of biology, microbiology, biochemistry and
physiology as nutritional scientists carry out research in order to
set standards for nutrients in relation to health (Mennell, Murcott,
& van Otterloo, 1992). It is a highly practical and applied discipline.
Flatt, however, argues that nutritional intake is inuenced by a
variety of genetic, environmental, cultural, and socio-economic
factors (Flatt, 1995). Similarly, Mennell et al. (1992) maintain that
food should be studied from the perspectives of multiple subject
areas. Individuals eat foods not single nutrients (Pryer et al.,
2001). The different components of a meal could compete with,
compensate and alter the bioavailability of each nutrient contained
in that meal (Pryer et al., 2001). In addition, it is possible to consider the way that the social value attached to food has risen in recent times, especially in the second half of the twentieth century
(Mennell et al., 1992). Consequently, nutrition scientists have
begun to realize the importance of collaboration with the social
sciences (Mennell et al., 1992). However, it appears that the collaboration between nutrition science and sociology has not yet been
fully achieved. Sports nutrition science in particular is a relatively
new and special area of dietetics (Clark, 2000). Moreover, athletes
use nutrition as an instrument in order to enhance their performance so that scientic sports nutrition research is likely to focus
on the amount and the timing of the food that should be consumed. However, since research has shown that most athletes nd
it hard to achieve their nutritional requirements, existing research
conducted from a singular perspective will be limited in its effectiveness in improving the actual diets of sportspeople. This paper
argues, therefore, that it is necessary to go beyond such a single
disciplinary approach to sports nutrition. Since qualitative methods are able to investigate reasons why players cannot consume
an adequate diet for performance, this study combined quantitative and qualitative methods to investigate not only what professional footballers consumed but also the way cultural factors
affected their nutritional intake.
Since food is a social entity, the nutritional requirements of
professional athletes need to be understood in a social context.
The current food choices of individuals have been shaped by
experiences during the whole course of their lives (Devine, Connor,
Bisogni, & Sobal, 1998; Furst, Connors, Bisogni, Sobal, & Winter
Falk, 1996). We considered, therefore, that it was necessary to
adopt a sociological imagination (Wright Mills, 1959) to professional football and nutrition and to use a mixed method approach
to the study of nutrition in the world of professional football.
In order to explore the sociological dimensions of football nutrition, we drew on Bourdieus (1984) concept of habitus. Bourdieu argued that ones choice of sport and taste in food is not an
individuals free choice but results from the internalisation of social
conditions of ones earliest environments. Tastes in sports and foods
are heavily informed, therefore, by social class. Taste is a virtue
made of necessity (Bourdieu, 1984, p. 175), resulting from the active embrace of the realities of ones existence, transforming constraints into preferences. Ones social environment induces us to
make choices that reect and then reproduce that environment.
The resulting set of tastes and their corresponding social value (categorised in the terms of social class) forms our habitus. Habitus is
our system of dispositions, that is structured by society but also
structures the way we encounter the world. In other words, ones
habitus is a result of upbringing and culture, and continues to shape

99

the way we adjust to new conditions throughout life: whenever a

change in social conditions puts the habitus into new conditions . . .
it is taste the taste of necessity or the taste of luxury and not
high or low income, which command the practices objectively adjusted to these new resources (Bourdieu, 1984, p. 175). Hence, it
is important to emphasise that Bourdieus concept of habitus makes
it clear that the food tastes and practices of professional football
players cannot be simply explained by questions about economic
status. Wacquant (2000, p. 116) suggests that Bourdieus work
demonstrates the hierarchy of lifestyle is a misrecognized retranslation of the hierarchy of classes and the search for social distinction involves not only highlighting ones own tastes but also ones
distaste of the tastes of others, including their taste in food, cultural
practices and sport. In order, therefore, to explain why professional
footballers nd it difcult to consume a diet for optimal performance, we found it useful to consider the way that the habitus of
the individual footballers was implicated in their food choice.
Several factors were anticipated from previous nutritional studies on dietary change of immigrants. As well as practical reasons
such as the price of food, the lack of familiar tastes and the limited
availability of national food, those studies point out that cultural
background such as age, length of residence, difculty in speaking
the new language, and previous cooking experience appeared to be
important factors affecting ones dietary adaptation. Even if football players play in their home country (i.e., the British players in
this study), they can still be expected to experience changes in diet.
Studies suggest that changes in eating habits occur due to the
diverse changes in lifestyle during adolescence (Post, Kemper,
Twisk, & van Mechelen, 1997; von Post-Skagegard et al., 2002).
von Post-Skagegard et al. (2002) point out that adolescents those
aged between 17 and 21 years in particular develop their own living habits, including dietary habits. Football players usually join
the youth team of a professional football clubs when they are
around 17 years old. Therefore, it is likely that they will change
their lifestyle habits, especially if leaving the parental home and
living with other team-mates in a shared house. Such an experience is expected to have an inuence on developing the new eating
habits of football players.
This study aimed to ascertain the reasons professional footballers nd it difcult to consume a diet adequate for optimal performance. In order to do this it was necessary to combine quantitative
nutritional analysis with qualitative interviews. Sociological theory
was used to make sense of the ndings of the study. This research,
therefore, crossed traditional disciplinary boundaries of sports
nutrition and sociology. This innovative approach has produced
new data and new insights which would not have been possible
without qualitative data collection and analysis.

Methods
Participants
A nutritional intake assessment was conducted using data from
24 professional football players playing in English football leagues
to ascertain whether they consumed a diet that was adequate for
their performance. Those players were recruited from four Premier
League and a League One clubs during the seasons 20067 and
20078. Using a 4-day food record diary with household measures,
energy and macronutrient intakes were assessed with the Dietplan
6 dietary analysis computer software (Foresteld Software), and
then compared with the levels of intake recommended for professional football players (Economos, Bortz, & Nelson, 1993; Lemon,
1994; MacLaren, 2003; Shephard, 1999). The purpose of the nutritional intake assessment in this study was to conrm whether professional football players consumed an adequate diet for their

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M. Ono et al. / Appetite 58 (2012) 98104

optimum performance. In the same manner as previous studies,

this study focused on the energy, carbohydrate, protein and fat intakes of professional football players.
Based on the results obtained from the nutritional intake
assessment (see below), 42 in-depth interview sessions with both
professional football players and support staff were carried out to
further investigate the reasons why professional players found it
difcult to change their eating habits. The interviewees were initially selected from the sample of nutritional intake assessments
received. Eleven out of the 24 players agreed to participate in interview sessions (seven British and four migrant players). Once their
interview sessions were completed, a snowball technique was then
used to recruit more interview participants. As well as football
players, support staff including doctors, physiotherapists and
kitchen staff were also interviewed since they closely work with
football players.
In total, 30 players (13 British and 17 migrant players) were
interviewed in this study. At the time of the interview, 29 of the
30 players were contracted to professional clubs in England, France
and Japan; 20 out of 29 players were from English Premier League
clubs and 7 out of 29 were from a English League One club. One of
the interviewees was contracted to a French club from League 2,
and one was contracted to a Japanese club from J-League 1. The
player who was not contracted to a professional club in England
had retired from a professional football two years before the interview was conducted after a 12-year playing career. The 17 migrant
players were from Australia, United States, Germany, Norway,
South Korea, Switzerland, Paraguay, New Zealand, Sweden, France,
Japan and Finland. Additionally, 12 support staff were interviewed
in this study; four were sports scientists, two were doctors, four
were physiotherapists and two were kitchen staff. All worked for
Premier League clubs at the time of the interview except one of
the physiotherapists who worked for a League One club.
Interviews
Qualitative interviews were conducted in order to enable professional football players and their support staff to describe experiences in their own words. This method provided rich information
that other qualitative methods such as the questionnaire or structured interviews are not able to obtain. Qualitative interviews can
allow the investigator access to peoples opinions and attitudes
(Stroh, 2000). Hence, qualitative interview techniques are particularly useful in the examination of the why questions at the heart
of this research (Stroh, 2000).
The interviewees were encouraged to talk about their eating
habits. Each interview session started with the interviewees football career or recent performance in general. Then the conversation
gradually narrowed down to topics related to his dietary experience. Questions such as their likes and dislikes of foods, whether
they like cooking or even asking them which is a good restaurant
for their native cuisine in Britain provide the interviewer with insights into changes in their eating habits. Migrant players especially were urged to talk about their feelings about food when
they transferred abroad.
Support staff were interviewed on professional football players
eating habits from their point of view because they work closely
with professional football players during the season and were
encouraged to talk about the existing situation of nutritional support within professional football culture.

were carried out through the 20078 and the beginning of the
20089 seasons. Two interview sessions were carried out in Japan
and France where the players were based at the time of the interview. Each interview session took place in either a sports science
ofce or treatment room, which could provide a relaxed atmosphere for the interviewees and make them feel comfortable.
Once an interview session was completed, the interviews were
transcribed. As two out of 42 interview sessions were carried out in
Japanese, these interviews were rst transcribed into in Japanese
and then translated into English.
Ethics and condentiality
Ethical approval was obtained by Roehampton University Research Ethics Committee prior to carrying out this study. All participants were assured of condentiality and anonymity and no
nancial or other incentives were offered to take part. As many
researchers (Kelly & Waddington, 2006; Magee & Sugden, 2002;
Parker, 1996; Roderick, 2006) have described, the professional football world is tremendously secretive. The issue of condentiality
was of critical concern, therefore, as professional football players
needed to trust that there would be no negative impact from the research on their career progression. In total 118 professional football
clubs were approached to participate in the study, but turned down
the invitation to due to concerns over condentiality. This is because managers consider nutritional intake assessment to be valuable information that they were reluctant to share with outsiders.
In addition, some managers were unwilling to have visitors at the
training ground. For example, a physiotherapist from a Premier League club sent his regrets with a clear explanation why their manager did not want to participate in this research project as follows:
I would also mention that the Manager prefers to keep our
training ground facility as private as possible and does not allow
visitors to have access to coaching or medical areas in order to
speak to them.
(personal communication, 7 August 2006)
Data analysis
During analysis we sought to avoid pre-determining the themes
of the data and enabling them to emerge from the data itself. As a
result, the data was organized into what might be termed common
clusters (Roderick, Waddington, & Parker, 2000) based on the key
themes emerging from the interviews. These clusters included
the football players experiences of food in childhood as well as
dietary changes after becoming professional football players, nutritional support from the clubs and British food culture. In addition,
the impact of football traditions and power relations within a professional football club emerged as consistent clusters. Analysis of
the clusters enabled us to group the factors affecting the footballers dietary choices into two themes. These overarching themes
were habitus and traditions. Factors such as the football players experiences of food in childhood, dietary changes after becoming professional football players and British food culture were
classied as habitus, and the themes such as nutritional support
from the clubs, football traditions and the power relations within
a professional football club were classied as traditions.
Results

Procedure
Nutritional intake
All the interviews, which lasted between 30 and 60 min, were
tape-recorded with the permission of the interviewees and the
tapes were transcribed for analysis later. The interview sessions

The results obtained from the nutritional intake assessment

conrmed that professional football players did not consume a diet

M. Ono et al. / Appetite 58 (2012) 98104

that was adequate for their optimal performance. Although the

average energy intake was not signicantly (p > 0.05) different
from the recommended intake, this average intake masks high variability in individual intake which ranged widely from 2648 to
4606 kcal/day. In addition, a signicantly lower intake of carbohydrate is highlighted. Although some players understood that consuming a diet high in carbohydrate, especially before exercising,
is essential as it is the primary source for working muscles, they
found it hard to eat a diet high in carbohydrate.
The study revealed the main food sources of carbohydrate and
protein. It was found that pasta dishes were consumed as the main
carbohydrate source in diet and players talked about pasta and carbohydrate synonymously. This study showed that the mean carbohydrate intake of the 24 professional football players was 505.2
(SD 120) g/day. The professional football players consumed 2.2
(SD 1.5) pasta dishes on average per day during the 4-day assessment period. Likewise, it was found that chicken dishes were
consumed as the main protein source. The mean protein intake of
the 24 professional football players in this study was 141.7
(SD 22.8) g/day. In practice, on average, the professional football
players consumed 3.2 (SD 1.8) chicken dishes per day. The average
fruit and vegetable consumption by the professional football players
in the present study was 2.2 portions in a day. This amount was far
less than the recommendation of ve portions per day (Department
of Health, 2005). This amount was, in fact, less that the national
average fruit and vegetable intake for men in general (2.7 portions
per day) according to National Diet and Nutrition Survey in 2003.
Nutrition in traditional football culture
The results of the qualitative interviews aimed to go beyond
these gures and explain the reasons for players difculties in consuming a diet for optimal performance. Football traditions were
seen to have had a great impact on the nutritional intakes of professional football players. A senior player with eleven years of professional playing career indicated that a sport science is seen as a
kind of foreign import that has conicted with the traditional culture of English professional football:
What they do in foreign countries brought certain things. You
know, people (both players and staff members) used to go out
to drink alcohol after the game [before sports science was introduced]. They really didnt understand what affects alcohol has
on the people. Now we understand what the muscles need to
recover after the game and so on. So we cant do that any more.
Many professional football clubs still do not work with sports
nutritionists/dietitians. Even if they do, the sports nutritionists
do not visit the training ground as frequently as players would like.
As a result, sports scientists or physiotherapists are usually responsible for nutrition within the club:
Traditionally, doctors are often the rst person to ask for nutritional advice, and physios in general conversation. . . A few
years ago the physio was the only one around [the training
ground] because the doctor often didnt turn up.
The interview ndings obtained by this study demonstrated
that English professional football is still run by traditional ideas.
Managers are generally ex-players and hold conservative ideas, often circulating negative views about sport nutrition acquired
through their own professional football career. Players revealed
their disappointment in not receiving nutritional support from
the club, which they tended to put down to lack of nance. However, interviews with support staff suggested that where clubs
were in a nancial position to provide a nutritionist, managers
do not always place a high value on so doing:

101

It is very very dependent on the club [whether they hire a nutritionist]. Here is an example. . . they [the club] came up to the
Premiership in the past few years from the Championship. Massive, massive amount of money was spent on sport science,
such as nutrition, sports medicine and rehabilitation. . . Now
they are not doing so well. Again, because the managers changed. So it is not purely about money. . . If you have money, you
dont necessarily spend money in the right place. The manager
comes in and uses that money but he may not use it in the right
place.
As a consequence, nutrition is excluded from their strategies
and professional football players subsequently acquire the knowledge that nutrition is not useful.
Habitus and the dietary choices of British footballers
This study found that the football players habitus (Bourdieu,
2001) had an impact on their nutritional intake. Football can be
considered a working-class sport in Britain, and British professional football players are often from a working-class background
(Walvin, 1975). Consequently, their tastes are likely to be derived
from working-class eating habits of their childhood. Interviews
with players bore this out and indicated some of the difculties
players had in changing their diet to a sport specic diet. Players
were often critical of childhood diets. For example:
I lived on sh and chips, sausage and pies when I was younger.
I dont remember if I had something else to be honest.
Another player described the traditional British food of his
childhood as being unhealthily low on vegetables:
When I was kid, my mum cooked traditional food, meat and
potatoes. . .beef stews, minced meats, roast beef and a lot of
potatoes. . . I remember I hardly ate vegetables. I ate just basic
ones like carrots and peas. So I dont name many vegetables
actually. . .
The dietary choices of the players childhoods are not found
within the football specic diet served at professional football
clubs. Pasta, in particular, is a very common item on the menu of
football clubs inside and outside of Britain, since a number of pasta
dishes have become part of the national diet in many countries.
Nevertheless, many British players grew up with a traditional British diet that did not include pasta. For example, one of the interviewees said,
I was very much from a working class family. Every single meal
I had until I was nearly 16 years old was sausage and chips.
Thus, pasta is a relatively new food item and some British players classied it as not my thing. As a result, they rejected the football specic diet presented to them by the clubs. Moreover, British
players food record diaries used for the nutritional intake assessment revealed that many British players in this study consumed
traditional British food at home. Several British players referred
to traditional British food as a proper and healthy meal during
the interviews. When asked about his eating habits in childhood,
one player said,
I liked everything, not fussy. . . My mom gave us proper meals,
traditional [British] food such as roast meats, stew, casseroles,
chips, peas.
Nevertheless, the overrepresentation of pasta in the diets of
players indicated that they had internalised a message from the
clubs that carbohydrate equated with pasta, and this conicted
with their preference for what they saw as traditional British food.
This over-identication of pasta with carbohydrate worked to

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M. Ono et al. / Appetite 58 (2012) 98104

constrain their choices, since it precluded options such as potatoes

which may t better within a traditional British diet.
Migrant players
Perceptions of the traditional British diet also affected the nutritional intake of migrant players. Negative stereotypes of British
food culture propagated in popular discourse were reproduced
during interviews with migrant players, who sought to mark distinction between their good/healthy food choice and perceived
bad/unhealthy diet of Britain.
All professional football players are required to make an effort
to change from their habitual eating habits to football specic eating habits in order to enhance performance. Migrant players, however, need to make an even greater effort since they must rst
change from their native diet to the diet available in a new country
such as Britain. In the interviews conducted, all the migrant players
who participated in this study expressed that a view that British
food is bad, that is, fatty and unpalatable. For instance, a Norwegian player who had been in Britain for four years at the time of
the interview insisted that he did not want to change his habitual
eating habits because he thinks British food is bad. He said;
No, I dont eat English way. I live in [a northern city] but I get
food when I go home or my friends travel over. . . here [in Britain] people always eat fast food, sausages and pies. They are
fatty! I like chips but here people always eat chips! And I dont
like English breakfast because English breakfast is heavy.
A German player who had been in Britain for ve years at the time
of the interview perceived British food as relying on junk food:
I dont like British food because its bad! British food is fatty and
a lot of junk food chips, burgers, kebabs. . . a lot of food with
fat on it! I dont like junk food. I like to eat proper food.
In addition, the heavy usage of oil in cooking was also often
pointed out by migrant players in the interview sessions. For
example, a Paraguayan player said:
British food is too fatty. A lot of food here is deep fried. Fried
eggs are like deep fried because you can see the oil. Not only
fried eggs but you can see oil in food.
Moreover, many migrant players maintained that British food
had little variety with the result that they got bored easily:
I moved to Britain at the beginning of this season, so seven
months ago. But Ive already got bored of food here. Its boring. . . I always eat the same food again and again.
A perceived lack of fresh fruit and vegetables contributed to
Australian and New Zealander players negative views of Britain
in comparison with their home countries. What is more, many
football players suggested that alcohol accounts for a large part
of British food culture, which gave them the impression that British food is bad. For instance, a French player said:
We drink alcohol but not as much as the British do. They drink a
lot! We usually drink one or two glasses of wine and enjoy it
but people here drink far too much and get drunk!
None of the migrant players who participated in this study
mentioned social class but emphasised national differences in eating habits during the interviews. Thus, the barrier to unfamiliar
foods was more often observed migrant players during the interview sessions when they talked about their current food choice.
Migrant players see themselves as distinct from the British players
and consequently reject British food culture. In Bourdieus (1984, p.

56) terms, since tastes are no doubt rst and foremost distastes,
we can understand some of the reluctance of migrant footballers to
embrace British food culture in terms of its social meaning. Many
of the migrant professional footballers had access to nancial resources that could enable them to consume high quality food
items, yet food as a cultural practice takes its social meaning,
and its ability to signify social difference and distance, not from
some intrinsic property it has but from its location in a system of
like objects and practices (Wacquant, 2000, p. 115).
In addition, migrant players considered their national food
found in Britain to be different from the food that they were familiar with in their home countries. For example, Norwegian players
involved in the study disliked British version of bread:
I dont like to eat bread here [in Britain] because I found a lot of,
very white bread, very light. . . not dark bread, wholegrains,
something like that I used to eat.
Migrant players tended to reject Anglicized versions of familiar
foods. For example, while migrant players may be familiar with
Italian food, they are likely to classify Anglicized Italian food as
unfamiliar food and exclude it from their dietary intake. Although
the Italian diet has been well adopted into British food culture, it
has largely been reduced to pasta and pizza in the professional
football world. Since players in our study ate on average 2.2
(SD 1.5) pasta dishes a day, all players could become bored of eating pasta dishes. Furthermore, migrant players may reject these
dishes as anglicized and inauthentic, thus constraining their food
choices further still.
It should be noted that the distaste of the national diet is not
limited to players migrating to Britain. A Japanese player at an Italian Serie A club expressed similar difculties with his new local
diet:
When I joined [an Italian club], I found it hard to nd the food I
like. Because [the Italian city where he lived] is by the coast I
thought I would be able to eat a lot of sh dish but people there
dont eat [much sh]. They eat more meat actually. You know,
we eat a lot of Italian food in Japan so having just Italian food
was no problem with me, but it was difcult for me to get used
to the Italian food that is based on meat.
Since people are taught the values of culture in which they grew
up, they tend to view their own patterns of behaviour as being
right, normal and best. As a corollary to this, foreign cultures are
viewed as being wrong or irrational or misguided. So engrained
are such attitudes that some degree of ethnocentrism is virtually
inescapable, though exposure to other cultures can broaden tolerance and aid in an understanding of how other people live (Fieldhouse, 1996).
Discussion
Dietary intake is inuenced by many factors including genetics,
the environment, socio-economics and culture (Flatt, 1995). Professional football players are regularly transferred between countries,
and consequently they experience additional problems in adapting
their eating habits to the new national food or dietary pattern. Previous studies have shown that professional football players often
fail to consume the ideal sport specic diet (Craven et al., 2002;
Hassapidou, 2001; Jacobs et al., 1982; Maughan, 1997; Rico-Sanz,
1998; Rico-Sanz et al., 1998). However, little research has been
conducted to investigate reasons why professional football players
cannot consume an adequate diet for their optimum performance.
Therefore the aim of this study was to investigate how professional
footballers change their normal eating habits to those that are sport
specic with reference to cultural factors.

M. Ono et al. / Appetite 58 (2012) 98104

To attain the aim of this research project, the most appropriate

research methodology consisted of a combination of quantitative
and qualitative methods. The data obtained by interviews supported the results of the nutritional intake assessment. It is revealed that eating habits are primary related to players
upbringing. This study demonstrated that taste in food is constructed in childhood based on the food experience of ones parents, because parents and children share the same food culture
and environment, and it is usually continues into adulthood.
Therefore, the British players who grew up mainly eating a traditional British diet found it difcult to change their habitual diet
to a football specic diet because they were not accustomed to a
diet so high in carbohydrate. The results of the nutritional intake
assessment revealed that professional football players who participated in this study consumed 2.2 (SD 1.5) pasta dishes per day
on average. This is attributed to the fact that all the clubs involved
in this study understood the importance of nutrition and prepared
both breakfast and lunch at the training ground, where pasta
dishes were served to the players every day. However, these players preferred to eat traditional British food at home. Likewise, migrant players found it difcult to eat British food as they were not
used to it. The interview data obtained by this study revealed that
the Italian diet is regularly consumed as a football specic diet in
many professional football clubs. However, the variety of the Italian diet adopted in British football clubs is likely to be restricted to
pasta, which players are likely to grow bored of eating. This appeared to hinder professional football players from consuming a
diet high carbohydrate.
Secondly, this study demonstrated that English football culture
had a great impact on the nutritional intakes of professional football players. English professional football is still run by traditional
ideas and managers are in the most powerful position. Generally
managers are former players, and most of them hold the knowledge that nutrition is not benecial because it is the traditional
knowledge that they acquired through their own professional careers. As a result, attention to nutrition is often excluded from
the clubs and players regimes. Professional football players acquire this knowledge as football habitus and unconsciously embody it through their playing career like their managers before
them (Bourdieu, 2001). In fact, this study demonstrated that many
professional football clubs still do not work with sports nutritionists or only infrequently. Consequently, other members of the support team are responsible for nutrition within the club. While
English professional football world has been experiencing a transition curve in respect to nutrition due to the inux of migrant players and support staff to English professional football league clubs,
an acquired knowledge that nutrition was not useful was still dominant at the time of this research. This contributes to cultural barriers that make the consumption of the optimal football specic
diet difcult for players. Combining a quantitative approach with
a qualitative approach can provide rich data in this context and begin to explain the reasons why football players fail to consume a
diet for optimal performance.

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