ROUSES_Fall2023_Magazine

Snacks By Sarah Baird

M eeks, a New Orleans native who attended St. Mary’s Dominican and was a cheer leader for Archbishop Rummel High School, has been a pioneer in sports nutrition and athlete-centered dietetics, carving out a position that’s still relatively novel in the world of professional sports, with a mission to educate those in the upper echelons of football about how what they eat and when they eat it are every bit as important as the hours upon hours they put in running agility drills and lifting weights. “I was about to try out for the Louisiana State University cheerleading team, and my coach recommended that I go see a dietitian to make sure that I was eating right; eating enough; eating for performance; eating for muscle — everything,” Meeks recalls. “I was just amazed at what I learned in one session. I literally went back and changed my major to dietetics. I was like, ‘This is what I want to do.’” The concept of both collegiate and

If I were a professional football player, it’s safe to assume that my meal planning — and late-night snacking — would be over the top from the first day of practice. In my estimation, if you’re exercising constantly to build both brawn and stamina, why not dabble in some late-night trips to the refrigerator for a second helping of Rouses fried chicken, or have mac and cheese and mashed potatoes when grabbing lunch? And while I know in my heart of hearts that there’s a gridiron star in me — if only in spirit — I would not only never make it in the big leagues, but the New Orleans Saints’ director of sports nutrition, Jamie Meeks, would have some serious concerns about my potential nutrition regimen (or lack thereof).

After completing the rigorous require ments to become a certified dietitian — including 1,200 hours of hands-on experience through rotations in hospitals, community settings, school food service and regular food service management — Meeks remained focused on sports nutrition as an end goal, enrolling back at LSU for a master’s degree in exercise physiology. “I actually went to the athletic depart ment and said, ‘I’m a dietitian. I would love to volunteer my time to counsel the LSU athletes. Anything y’all need?’ And they were like, ‘Sure, free labor.’ So, whenever they needed a nutrition consult for the athletes, they would call me up. It grew into providing team talks and getting more familiar with the athletic staff.” Eventually, a light bulb moment landed Meeks the role she’d been working toward since college. “One day, I was talking to my advisor, and she said, ‘What about making a business proposal for them to hire you full-time?’ And that’s what I did. My whole last semester of grad school, I put together a business plan for LSU to hire their first full-time sports dietitian. Once I graduated, they accepted it, and hired me in 2011.” Being the first sports dietitian at LSU, however, wasn’t without its challenges. “We started from scratch. I kind of knew what I wanted it to be, but I didn’t really have that experience. LSU didn’t even have experi ence building a sport nutrition program! We all worked together,” says Meeks. “It was all new! They were used to someone in opera tions just ordering food, and everybody ate whatever. There was really no reason, no purpose, behind it. Now, there’s a purpose behind it. I won’t lie. It was tough trying to make change because it was always, ‘Well, we’ve always done this,’ and ‘We won with doing this,’ and ‘Why do we have to change it?’ It was not only changing those

professional sports teams having a dietitian on staff, though, was practically unheard of in 2005. “I knew in my mind I wanted to work with some sort of athlete population. I didn’t know this at the time, but that really wasn’t a thing. Most of the work for dietitians was in a clinical setting. So, when I was talking to my professors about what type of dietetics I would like to get into, and I said sports, they were like, ‘You can possibly do that on the side, but that’s not a real job. You can’t do that.’”

Jamie Meeks, MS, RD, CCCD, LDN, Director of Sports Nutrition New Orleans Saints. Photo courtesy New Orleans Saints.

60 ROUSES FALL 2023