Parents get mad at mother for giving 13-year-old girl’s softball team pizza and “junk food” at a sleepover: ‘It’s 15 girls, so I figured it was easiest because these [foods] feed a lot of children’ – FAIL Blog

People have a tendency to take things way too seriously and one of those things is kid’s sporting competitions.

There’s this thing called a “cheat night” that has been popularized by actors, influencers, athletes, and anyone else training seriously for an athletic event. The premise of a “cheat night” is that you break your regimented nutrition intake and instead of carefully monitoring everything you consume, you eat pretty much everything you want for a single evening. The idea here is that you’re releasing the stress of the training while limiting bad food choices to that single night. 

Now, this is for serious athletes training for the events that will make or break their careers, and though it’s not as if you shouldn’t be taking anything you do seriously when you’re 13 years old you’re not necessarily competing at the pinnacle of competition where you’re facing off against the best-of-the-best and every little thing counts. 

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It’s not like one “cheat night” at 13 years old,  is going to one day, is going to cause a cascade of events a la “The Butterfly Effect” that is going to cause you to lose the Super Bowl, or whatever event is the pinnacle of your sport. Do you think Travis Kelce was like, “Darn, shouldn’t have eaten that bag of Fritos when I was 15 years old!” after losing this year’s Super Bowl?

Regardless of whether or not the complaints are related to athletic ability. Some parents just need to calm down a bit. It’s not as if any serious dietary needs or allergies weren’t considered here and a little pizza and a “cheat night” goes a long way to helping the mental health of an athlete—at any level of competition.