From TikTok myths to real meals: How double award-winner Ellie Olds is educating pupils about nutrition

Peak performance

In her role at Holroyd Howe, Olds supports more than 230 schools across the UK and has worked with more than 8,000 pupils, tailoring her message depending on audience age and understanding.

Whether encouraging three-year-olds “to eat the rainbow” or drilling down into the specifics of how nutrition can affect energy levels in sport to a group of teenagers, Olds grounds all her presentations, talks and workshops in a common-sense, practical approach: “I always like to talk about nutrients rather than numbers.” Numbers, she says, can feel inaccessible to some, so she also makes her talks as interactive as possible and aims to get food involved “because that’s always a win”, she says.

“We offer some top tips, such as if you get bad menstrual cramps, try adding Omega 3 to your diet as it’s anti-inflammatory and may help”

Olds’ professional football career comes in useful too. She trains three to four times a week, with matches on weekday evenings, which means she stays up-to-date with the latest research on maximising energy and performance. “I get a little bit of respect because they know I know what I’m talking about, because I actually have to do this on a daily basis,” she says.

This approach can also be seen in her initiative, ‘Go with the Flo’, aimed at young women in schools and which addresses menstrual health and nutrition with sensitivity and relevance. Olds says: “We offer some top tips, such as if you get bad menstrual cramps, try adding Omega 3 to your diet as it’s anti-inflammatory and may help.”

She also played a key role in supporting Children’s Mental Health Week, which took place in February, particularly with her contributions at Collège Français Bilingue de Londres, where she provided education to pupils and staff on how food affects the mind.

Finding the evidence

Her focus on delivering accessible, interactive and bite-sized information is aimed to cut through the noise of TikTok, Instagram and YouTube – favoured social media platforms among pupils. And it isn’t just students she has to convince; parents also turn to social media for nutrition advice. She says pupils and parents will “see a fad diet on social media and they take it as gospel, but you need to come back with evidence-based nutrition”. She stresses she’s not against using social media altogether, but urges people to be discerning about who they follow and to always check the influencer’s credentials.

Her message is clearly resonating. A year nine pupil recently told Olds that her session was “really helpful to learn about the best snacks and meals to have before and after sport to help maximise recovery. We learned about the importance of sleep, hydration and balanced nutrition, and I now realise how small changes can make big differences to my physical and mental health”.

Another even handed her a handwritten note outlining how her class plans to sell wonky fruit and vegetables, donating 80% of the proceeds to a charity supporting producers.

This influence has not gone unnoticed. Judges for both awards described Olds as “an inspiring and influential figure in the nutrition sphere”, whose work impacts children “in an incredibly positive way”.

For Olds, such recognition validates a new kind of nutrition leadership, one that is authentic, personal, evidence-based and educational. “That’s obviously how I’ve been able to get these two awards, and that’s what I really enjoy doing,” she says. “It’s a privilege to be able to eat healthily, so being able to make it accessible to as many people as possible is amazing.”

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