Taylor Swift isn’t the only female rock star associated with the Kansas City Chiefs. Leslie Bonci, MPH, RDN, CSSD, LDN, FAND, is a celebrity in her own right in the field of sports nutrition. Although Bonci recently resigned (effective end of season) from her 10-year stint providing nutrition advice for the no-longer-publicity-challenged football team, that doesn’t mean she’s no longer in the game.
 
She’s far from retiring, just re-shifting her focus, and is still rooting for her Chiefs to bring home the Lombardi Trophy.
 
You see, her time with the Chiefs is not her only National Football League (NFL) rodeo, or for that matter, her only experience working with professional sports teams. Prior to the Chiefs, she spent 21 years with the Pittsburgh Steelers. “I started working with the team in the early 90s as their registered dietitian and at that point I was one of only a few sports RDs in the NFL,” said Bonci.
 
As if those two teams weren’t enough sports for one woman, she’s also worked  with Major League Baseball (MLB) teams, including the Blue Jays, the Reds, the Brewers, and the Nationals. And don’t discount her time working as a collegiate sports dietitian with the University of Pittsburgh where she provided nutrition expertise for more than two decades.
 
Bonci is also the owner of Active Eating Advice by Leslie Bonci, Inc., and co-founder of Performance 365, both nutrition consulting companies specializing in sports (and performance) nutrition.
 
If Bonci hasn’t seen it all, she’s certainly seen plenty.
 
Another female legend in the sports nutrition industry is Susan M. Kleiner, PhD, RD, FACN, CNS-E, FISSN, founder and owner of High Performance Nutrition, LLC, a nutrition consulting firm formed in 1992, where her current main focus is industry consulting. Kleiner’s work in the sports nutrition field goes back a decade earlier to around 1982 as a grad student, and like Bonci, she’s experienced some interesting shifts in the industry.
 
Asked to describe a historic hurdle or two that women have faced in sports nutrition, she’s keen to give her impressions. “You know, this is quite interesting,” said Kleiner, explaining that “the practical field of sports nutrition was founded nearly 99% by women registered dietitians. Just like the rest of the nutrition field, it was a female-centric profession.”
 
She went on to explain that “we began as practitioners recognizing that there was a different nutritional need of highly active individuals from general healthy nutrition, and we began to talk about it, write about it, research it in academic settings, and create consulting job opportunities in male sports leagues, mostly the NFL, National Basketball Association, MLB, and also in the Olympics with the United States Olympic Committee and other countries, as well as in the military.”
 
In other words, people like Kleiner and Bonci saw opportunity—and a need—for the focus on sports nutrition early on—both as a way to personally have a career and as a way to help athletes improve theirs.
 
Speaking of this close-knit group of women leading the way, Kleiner noted: “We were first to create private practice nutrition consulting businesses. We were very collegiate and shared information, strategies, and even clients when one practitioner had more expertise in one sports specific area than another. We were a very small club educating the world.”
 
But something shifted along the way. “As it became a more recognized professional opportunity with courses at universities and pathways to jobs, more men entered the field (often from exercise physiology versus nutrition) and honestly the culture did change and it became more competitive,” Kleiner said.
 
However, there were positives that went along with this shift. Once sports nutrition was no longer viewed as just a “women’s profession,” Kleiner said, “it also created more opportunities” and became “more well-recognized as something that was important.”
 
Admittedly, she said, “it seemed that it took men entering the field to gain the traction and that fact doesn’t feel very good.” But overall, Kleiner believes that “becoming a more gender diverse field was good for everyone in the end.”
 
Along with the culture shift in sports nutrition came other issues that laws today are in place to address. But none of the indignities experienced defeated the four women interviewed for this article; and, in fact, all four went on to successful careers in which sports nutrition plays a big role. 

Enter Two More Storied Female Sports Nutrition Experts

Well-known wellness industry expert and consultant, Jacqueline Jacques, ND, FTOS, entered the dietary supplement and wellness industries in the late 1990s and during her 24 years in the industry she formulated products for sports nutrition, advised companies making the products, and spent 9 years working for Thorne, one of the largest NSF Certified for Sport lines in the world.
 
“Historically, nearly every aspect of the sports nutrition field has belonged to men,” Jacques noted. “The first time I can personally remember acknowledging this was about 10 years ago when I was sitting on the board for Promax Nutrition. I took an opportunity to walk the floor at the Arnold Classic Expo, which at the time was the most important trade show for the company.”
 
She recalled “having the realization that the only women really present at the show were the ‘booth babes’—these scantily clad, very fit young women who basically served the purpose of being sexual lures. It was a far cry from Expo West.”
 
Susan J. Hewlings, PhD, RD, vice president of research affairs at Radicle Science, is a well-respected sports nutrition expert whose stellar career covers numerous facets of sports nutrition, an industry she’s been in most of her life as an athlete, a trainer, and an educator. She’s worked with many women’s sports teams and served on the Athletic Committee at Stetson University.
 
She shared one not-so-positive experience. “It was a long time ago, but I received my Certified Strength and Conditioning Specialist (CSCS) certification and was told by a trainer: ‘well, good for you … you won’t ever get a strength coach job, but it will be good for your personal training business.’”
 
She later let the certification lapse, because, as she said, “he appeared to be right. But that was like 30 years ago and I do think things have improved.”
 
Bonci has had similar dismissive experiences in her career. She opined that “sports have historically been a good ole’ boys network, and for women, it has been not only ‘prove yourself,’ but setting boundaries—from how women are viewed, to how they are talked to—no ‘honey,’ ‘toots,’ ‘babe’—to fighting for inclusion at the table.”
 
More specifically, she’s learned to fight the insecurity and ignorance of strength coaches, for example, who don’t want to be undermined or who don’t want to share the spotlight with those who might have more knowledge than them.
 
For example, Bonci believes that many strength coaches view themselves as experts in sports nutrition, yet their expertise may be based more on personal experience than in scientific evidence, potentially making the recommendations very exclusive and avoidant. “And the strength staff may not be supportive of the RDN’s recommendation.”
 
“In football,” Bonci said, “a lot of the culture is determined by the coach. Does he want presentations to the team, does he want other staff on the field? What are their own beliefs regarding nutrition?”
 
Kleiner, whose career has involved work in research, communication, and practice of sports nutrition with clients, teams, and industry, said: “I honestly never felt ‘less than,’ and I never felt that I was in competition with my male colleagues based on gender; however, I do know that some of my female counterparts did feel that gender played a role in their consulting roles with sports league opportunities.” 

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“We have seen more of a blurring across categories of sports nutrition, mental performance, active lifestyle, and weight management that has made these products available to all consumers.” — Jacqueline Jacques, ND, FTOS

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What Took So Long for Things to Change?

The history is important because if left untold it opens us up to having that history repeated, or scripted by unreliable narrators. For women coming up in the sports nutrition field—those who want to see more inclusivity, diversity, and gender parity in leadership, opportunities, and pay—it’s important to have heroes who came before us, who made current conditions a bit easier, or a tad closer to the ideal. Further, it’s important to have mentors, those who will share their wisdom and have your back.
 
Sports nutrition may be one of the last categories in the dietary supplement/functional food industry to acknowledge and address the differences between women and men—both on and off the field.
 
For the dietary supplement industry, the category was originally a controversial one, focused on performance-enhancing products for “gym rats” looking to bulk up and build muscles that could only look like those magazine ads if steroids were involved. Competitive athletes looking for an edge dragged the entire industry into hurricane-level media storms that dominated the public perception of the category.
 
But in more recent years, the sports nutrition industry has shown its ability to thrive by reinventing itself and its customers. Companies began to shift the category’s reputation by focusing on products that were more in the realm of sports nutrition (versus performance-enhancement), and more mainstream, like protein and fish oil.
 
Messaging changed too, urging consumers to use the products holistically along with other supplements that supported cognitive, immune, and gut function, for example, and in combination with other healthy habits, like smart sleep and stress-reducing activities like meditation or yoga.
 
As importantly, companies saw growth through category acceptance of a broader bucket of consumers, redefining their customer base to include active life-stylers and expanding their marketing focus and product development to make the Pilates mom and the mature woman treadmilling in her extra bedroom feel welcome.
 
Adding the category-focused expansion “has had a huge impact on women and men,” said Hewlings. “Expanding the definition of an athlete is key. I mean, to me, the really hardcore people are those fitting it in around a demanding job, family, home, etc.” 
 
Credit where credit is due. For Hewlings, it’s “the mom jogging around the soccer fields while the kids practice” who is “a hard-core athlete.” And while that soccer mom might never compete in a professional tennis tournament, “her nutritional needs and her dedication have, until recently, been an untapped market,” she added.
 
Jacques noted another way the sports nutrition category has benefitted from this expansion, and like Hewlings, she believes it’s not just women who are the beneficiaries. “We have seen more of a blurring across categories of sports nutrition, mental performance, active lifestyle, and weight management that has made these products available to all consumers,” Jacques said.
 
She added: “I think the massive expansion of ecommerce has perhaps had the biggest impact. You don’t have to go into a gym to buy these products anymore.”
 
The shift in audience inclusion not only affected customers but also those women working in the sports nutrition field. According to Kleiner, “It’s had a huge impact for both populations. Casual athletes and active lifestyle opportunities have exploded research and development (R&D), offering evidence-based ingredients and delivery systems that would not have come to fruition, at least not as quickly.”
 
Kleiner also offered that “the non-‘gym rat’ population is pickier, so flavors, textures, convenience, have driven R&D to make products more accessible. Also, addressing not only performance, but how we ‘feel,’ sleep, recover, etc., has grown out of the active lifestyle channel.”
 
Expansion of the category, according to Kleiner, has also resulted in “far more opportunities [for] sports nutritionists, both women and men. But I think the particular focus on women and life stages has given a new voice to women practitioners, speaking for their clients and demanding evidence-based solutions.”

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“The biggest issue in female sports [is] the disconnect from the physiological demand of training and competing and the cultural pressure to be thin. This has been reflected in products and marketing as well, and it quite frankly perpetuates the unrealistic body ideal.” — Susan Hewlings, PhD, RD

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Women: Still Underrepresented in Scientific Studies

Now that the category of sports nutrition has expanded, will the inclusion of more females in scientific studies follow suit?
 
“Well, it starts with research. And historically, barely a quarter of research done in sports nutrition has even included women and girls,” said Jacques, pointing to a 2022 published study, which conducted a standardized audit of the literature on six evidence-based sports products to determine the representation of female versus male athletes.¹
 
As if it’s any consolation (and it’s not), the study authors (and we’re not shooting the messengers!) found that “within 1,826 studies totaling 34,889 participants, just 23% of participants were women, although 34% of studies included at least one woman.”
 
“So, we have a real knowledge gap that still needs to be filled,” said Jacques. “I would love to see more of the big brands play a role in driving research that helps us better understand what women and female athletes actually need.”
 
It’s not just sports nutrition that is lagging behind. Jacques observed that “we need to have equal studies in men and women across the board, and sports nutrition is no exception.”
 
She pointed to a problem that she exclaimed “shocked even me.” Jacques referenced a BBC article from 2023 that reported Australian scientists claim to have made the world’s first diagnosis of chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE) in a professional female athlete who committed suicide at age 28. The article noted that studies on the degenerative brain disease, linked to contact sports, are usually conducted on male athletes.²
 
Jacques emphasized that “while there has been much increased awareness of concussion in sports and the potential long-term consequence of CTE, the very first official diagnosis in a woman was just made [in 2023].”
 
Her point shouldn’t be missed. “Do we actually think that concussion and CTE is not happening in women at a similar rate to men? Of course not,” said Jacques. “We just have not been looking. If we aren’t evaluating things this important, what else are we missing? Probably a lot.”
 
Importantly, she added, “we can’t really start studying preventive strategies until we acknowledge the issues.”
 
According to Hewlings, in general, “the biggest issue in female sports [is] the disconnect from the physiological demand of training and competing and the cultural pressure to be thin. This has been reflected in products and marketing as well, and it quite frankly perpetuates the unrealistic body ideal.”
 
On a positive note, Hewlings said, “I am glad to see a small shift towards strong and muscular and celebrating all body types. I think traditionally women-specific products focused on weight loss and being thin, suppressing appetite as opposed to building muscle and recovery.”

What Do Women Want from Products? 

“Companies must listen to their women customers,” Kleiner urged, “not assume what they want or what’s best for them. I find this [is] a perennial problem, especially in male-dominated decision-maker brands.”
 
Kleiner also noted that often when “brands become aware of the opportunities in developing products for women, they kind of ‘make up’ a product, sometimes even taking” something already on the shelf and simply “rebranding it for women.”
 
That’s a no-no for Kleiner, saying “women will see through that in no time.” 
 
For example, she recalled working with a brand once, saying: “We knew that women were afraid of using carbohydrate supplements, but if they are high-intensity trainers, they need some supplementation.” Initially, Kleiner said the brand created an entirely new option with information and branding that was friendlier to women. However, the product “inside” was the same.
 
“We came to realize that was inferring that women needed to buy a different product than men, yet that was not the actual case,” Kleiner noted.
 
The truth was that the women needed to use the product differently. “So, we recreated the entire line, made it gender neutral, and gave use instructions that were geared toward the customized need of the consumer,” she added.
 
Bonci wants companies to consider the size of products when developing sports nutrition products for women. Product developers need to consider “scoop sizes that are female friendly, sports bottles that are tapered to accommodate a woman’s smaller hand size, pill sizes that are petite instead of enormous,” she urged.
 
This is one situation where Bonci said that “big is not necessarily better; it can be off-putting.”
 
And pictures on the packaging? They shouldn’t necessarily all be of men, Bonci said. Not if you’re selling a product to women. One more thing Bonci would really love to see is products for active older women, not just for young men.

Mars vs Venus

For better or for worse, there’s still a lot of Mars versus Venus in our society. The premise, based on a popular 1992 self-help book written by John Gray, PhD, titled Men Are from Mars, Women Are from Venus, theorized that men and women have different emotional, psychological and communicative needs, which can lead to breakdowns in relationships if not addressed.³
 
Hewlings noted that men and women communicate differently and marketers should take those differences into account. “I like what I am seeing brands do with women’s products,” she said, although not necessarily those in the sports nutrition category. In general, what works is “tapping into the need to establish a sense of community and trust and communication.”
 
She recommended brands “have a subscription, include social media, training tips, conversations by real women, and allow the customers to connect around the brand and what it stands for and what their needs are.” 
 
When breaking into the world of men’s collegial and professional sports, Bonci said her undergraduate degree in psychology was a plus because the mind shapes and frames so much of our eating habits. When working with teams, she said that “I viewed myself as the ‘ath-vocate’,” sticking up for her athletes and finding ways to “resonate with relevance, befriend and collaborate with all aspects of the team [including] players, coaching staff, front office, strength and conditioning staff, training staff, and food service staff.”
 
As a big believer in using humor, emotion and meeting players where they are, Bonci said that “if you lead with a little sass and then follow through with the why, there is better buy-in.” 

Why Can’t a Woman be More Like a Man?

Talk about not standing the test of time? In Frederick Loewe and Alan Jay Lerner’s popular musical “My Fair Lady,” lyricist Lerner asked this very question, sprinkling Rex Harrison’s musical response with phrases like this: “Why is thinking something women never do? And why is logic never even tried? Straightening up their hair is all they ever do. Why don’t they straighten up the mess that’s inside?”⁴
 
Of course, those lyrics were all in good fun, or at least the kind of thinking that passed as good fun in the early 60s. For those who know the musical, clearly Harrison’s character Professor Higgins was seemingly muddled about how to communicate with a woman he cared for. 
 
Still, some have a more modern interpretation of this song. As CEO and Founder of Shackleton Consulting, Nick Shackleton-Jones suggested, Higgins “comes to realize that the world would not be a better place if everyone were copies of himself and that, perhaps, diversity is not such a bad thing.”⁵
 
It would seem that diversity, including gender diversity, is in fact a good thing.
 
According to a presentation by Women in Nutraceuticals (WIN) President Heather Granato at Vitafoods Europe in Geneva and reported on by Nutraceuticals World, several studies and reports have identified significant benefits for businesses with greater gender parity. For example, research from McKinsey found a 48% performance differential between the most- and least gender-diverse companies in executive leadership.⁶

Further, according to Entrepreneur Media, there’s a 21% increased likelihood that companies with gender-diverse executive teams will report above-average profitability.⁶
 
Addressing why diversity is good for business, Granato said that this diversity of thought can empower leaders to make bolder decisions and that teams with greater gender and ethnic diversity tend to be more collaborative and engaging work environments.
 
“What that means is you’re not having the same level of turnover,” she said. “You’re bringing in people who are young and enthusiastic. They’re growing with your organization, they’re asking questions, and you’re ultimately getting better business results.”⁶

What Gives Us Hope for the Future of Women in Sports Nutrition?

“There are more women working in professional sports as RDNs, coaches, chefs, athletic trainers, and medical staff,” said Bonci. “There are also more professional women’s sports teams that are doing a fantastic job at advocating for equal pay and equal play.”
 
Hewlings, Jacques, and Kleiner are all active in WIN’s Science Committee and as such have a ground level awareness of changes for women in sports nutrition.
 
“I think the hope is the awareness that there is a [gender] gap and that many brands have stepped up to address it. I do anticipate positive changes,” said Hewlings.
 
“Groups like WIN are important to raise awareness and to create conversations,” she added. Hewlings said conversations are important if we’re to move forward on women’s issues. For example, there needs to be a better understanding of why so many women are leaving C-Suite positions, she added.
 
Jacques expressed this: “I think there has been some real tidal change in the field and there is more to come.”
 
For instance, “there is a growing intersection between female athletes demanding products made for women and companies no longer being able to ignore their importance. We are seeing more women moving into important roles in sports and active nutrition companies and a greater convergence of sports and mainstream nutrition,” Jacques said.
 
And, as importantly, she’s looking forward to a future where women-led companies are making scientifically validated products specific to the needs of active women and female athletes. “We seem to be moving in that direction,” she said.
 
Overall, Hewlings believes that women are finally embracing the fact that “we can succeed in sports and in life in general as women. We don’t have to be mini-men, we don’t have to communicate like men, or take their products in just smaller portions. We can be successful in playing our own game with emotion, empathy, and all the other attributes that have been traditionally assigned as feminine attributes” and that don’t actually have to be abandoned to be successful in sports and in business.
 
“This creates a huge opportunity for marketing,” Hewlings offered. “If you need an example, look no further than Taylor Swift. She is an example that you can be successful, fit, run your own empire, and do it with emotion while wearing pink glitter boots.” 
 
Think of people like Bonci, Kleiner, Jacques, Hewlings, and many others, as the Neil Armstrong’s of the sports nutrition industry. They took small steps for women, which have turned into big steps for humankind. 
 

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About the Author: Judy Blatman Communications, LLC specializes in writing, strategic counsel, and media training. Prior to launching her own consulting business, Blatman spent 16 years as Senior VP, Communications, at the Council for Responsible Nutrition. She is a member of Women in Nutraceuticals.
 
This content was sponsored by Women in Nutraceuticals (WIN), a non-profit organization whose mission is to empower women in nutraceuticals to unlock their personal and professional potential. For more information or to become a WIN member: https://womeninnutraceuticals.org 

References

1. Smith, E. et al. (2022). Auditing the Representation of Female Versus Male Athletes in Sports Science and Sports Medicine Research: Evidence-Based Performance Supplements.
Nutrients. 2022 Mar; 14(5): 953. doi: 10.3390/nu14050953
 
2. Ritchie, H. (2023.) CTE: Brain disease diagnosed in female athlete for first time. 4th July 2023. BBC News, Sydney. https://www.bbc.com/news/world-australia-66094187
 
3. Gray, J. (1992). Men Are From Mars, Women Are From Venus: The Classic Guide to Understanding the Opposite Sex. https://www.harpercollins.com/products/men-are-from-mars-women-are-from-venus-john-gray
 
4. Loewe, F. and Lerner, A. (1964). “Why Can’t a Woman Be More Like a Man?” My Fair Lady. http://www.reelclassics.com/Musicals/Fairlady/lyrics/fairlady-whycantawoman.htm
 
5. Shackleton-Jones. N. (2019). Why can’t a Woman be more like a Man? LinkedIn.  https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/why-cant-woman-more-like-man-nick-shackleton-jones/
 
6. Moloughney, S. (2023). “Women in Nutraceuticals Leadership Survey Sets Representation Baseline.” Nutraceuticals World. Jun. 26, 2023. https://www.nutraceuticalsworld.com/contents/view_features/2023-06-26/women-in-nutraceuticals-leadership-survey-sets-representation-baseline/