The nutritional consumption of adolescent footballer is important to ensure growth and a suitable sports performance. Nutritional recommendations for young athletes are controversial, and there are no data on the diet of young Argentinian football players. The objective of this study is to describe the nutritional ingestion of footballer in the lower division of a football club in Argentina, to establish the nutritional-anthropometric status and compare the differences between athletes and non-athletes.

Anthropometric and biochemistry measurements were performed, and nutritional questionnaires were completed by 91 young football players of a Buenos Aires football club and in 198 adolescents in a Social Sport Project.

No abnormal anthropometric-nutritional values were found in the footballer, although 8.9% of the non-athlete adolescents were overweight. The average energy ingested by the footballers was 3520±961 Kcal; which included 16%±3 proteins, 51%±11 carbohydrates and 31%±10 lipids. The energy was provided by starches (33%), meat (17%), fats (15%), milk products (12%), fruit and vegetables (14%), and sugars (8%). The football players ate more meat, milk products, fruit, vegetables and fats than their non-athlete peers, although less starches and sugars (P<.05), and they had higher haemoglobin and lower cholesterol values (P<.05).

The footballers have an adequate anthropometric-nutritional status and nutritional ingestion is higher in proteins and lipids and lower in carbohydrates to those recommended for adolescent athletes. Compared to young non-athletes, they consume food of a better nutritional quality.