Why do athletes love bananas during breaks? Some citizens tried to imitate them but were stopped. Experts analyze the key reasons
2024-08-06
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Recently, at the mixed doubles table tennis competition at the Paris Olympics, Korean players kept picking up a banana and chewing it during the halftime break, which attracted the attention of many netizens.
After an analysis, it was found that it was not just Korean athletes who were often seen eating bananas during the halftime of the game as Chinese athletes were also often seen eating bananas.
In fact, it is not just table tennis. Athletes in almost all sports have a "habit" of eating bananas between games. Football player Ibrahimovic once said that bananas are his "military rations."
Why do athletes often eat bananas between games? Zhang Zhenyi, director of the Nutrition Department of Changsha Third Hospital, pointed out that most sports require high energy intake, and athletes generally need to replenish carbohydrates before exercise and store a large amount of glycogen. Therefore, replenishing carbon water during and after exercise can reduce the damage caused by exercise to muscle tissue and help muscles recover better. "Banana has a high carbon water content and a relatively low digestion burden, so it has become the first choice for many athletes."
In addition, bananas are rich in magnesium and potassium. During sports competitions, athletes are in a state of high tension both mentally and physically, which can easily lead to electrolyte loss, affecting muscle sensitivity and causing muscle cramps. Potassium helps maintain normal nerve and muscle function and reduces the occurrence of muscle cramps. At the same time, magnesium is an important mineral that helps relieve stress, stabilize emotions, and fight tension and anxiety.
For athletes who have great physical activities and sweat a lot, it is very necessary to replenish energy and electrolytes during the game. Compared with chocolate, candy, or other fruits, the most direct advantage of bananas is that they are rich in nutrition, easy to carry, easy to store, hygienic and quick to eat, and suitable for eating in competitions, rallies, long-distance travel, etc. Moreover, eating and chewing during the game can help athletes relieve stress to a certain extent.
Influenced by many athletes, Xiao Yang (pseudonym), a woman in Changsha who is in the process of losing weight, also learned to eat a banana before working out, but was stopped by her fitness coach. Xiao Yang was very confused: Why can athletes eat bananas between games but I can't?
Ms. Deng, a fitness coach who works for a large chain fitness organization and has many years of experience in the industry, told the Xiaoxiang Morning News reporter that bananas are rich in carbohydrates and relatively high in calories. Every 100g (59g of edible part) of bananas has about 93Kcal, which is 2-3 times that of common low-calorie fruits. Therefore, it is not recommended for citizens who are in the fat loss period to eat too many bananas.
For the general population, the Dietary Guidelines for Chinese Residents recommend that adults consume 200-350g of fresh fruit every day. Bananas can be part of it, but patients with kidney disease, diabetes and poor gastrointestinal function should not eat too many bananas. "The high potassium content in bananas may increase the burden on the kidneys; ripe bananas have a higher sugar content and can easily cause blood sugar fluctuations; unripe bananas contain more tannic acid, which may react with the protein on the stomach wall to form tannic acid protein, leading to nausea, vomiting, abdominal pain and bloating. If you don't have a lot of exercise, eating one banana a day, or at most two bananas, is enough. It is also recommended to pair it with other fruits to get more nutrition." Zhang Zhenyi said.
Xiaoxiang Morning News reporter Mei Mei
Source: Xiaoxiang Morning News
