We are, and we win, what we eat

Sports nutrition has taken Jeni Pearce to all corners of the world.
From the Olympic Games, to the America’s Cup, from Formula One to the New Zealand Warriors and plenty more besides.
Now, she’s settled back in New Zealand, helping the nutritional development of younger athletes as they come into high performance environments, and supervising younger dietitians and nutritionists entering the profession that she has lived and breathed for over 40 years.
At the age of 13, Pearce she decided she wanted a career, she wanted to go to university and she wanted to be in food and science, but she also knew she didn’t want to be a teacher and she didn’t want to be a chef.  
She ended up at Otago University in the early 1980s doing a degree in nutrition and so began a journey which, in 2015, saw her made a Member of the New Zealand Order of Merit (MNZM) for services to sports nutrition.
As Pearce completed her time at Otago, there weren’t careers available in sports science, so she ended up doing a teaching degree in Auckland and then studied dietetics in Christchurch. She maintained contact with regional and social sport and understood the need to exercise to be healthy. She got a job in Palmerston North hospital as a dietician which was the start of her working with people collaboratively.
Pearce’s thirst for knowledge saw her apply for a scholarship to do a master’s degree on an exchange programme. She wanted to do nutrition education, science, and hoped there was something on sport; six weeks later she was on a plane to Iowa where she finished a two-year course in 18 months by working in summer schools. Her time there saw her exposed to elite sport in their college system and she ended up working with the Iowa state hockey team.
“Back then we didn’t have a lot,” says Pearce.
“Carbohydrate loading was the big thing. Electrolytes and sports drinks were just starting to become a little bit more mainstream. We didn’t have any sports foods, we didn’t have protein powders, none of that existed. We actually used real food and the really interesting thing that I see now, is that that’s where we’ve gone back to, we’ve gone full circle.”
Pearce arrived back in New Zealand and went into private practice, which she successfully combined for many years with her work across many sports.
Alongside America’s Cup challenges and Whitbread around the world yachting crews, she worked with the New Zealand Warriors for seven years following their inception, New Zealand Rugby League and the New Zealand Rugby Sevens set-up where she worked with Sir Gordon Tietjens.
“He was one of the first coaches that I’d worked with that had a really intense and strong vision for nutrition and health, because he trained his athletes really hard,” says Pearce.
Working with the Warriors was one of her first totally integrated roles. It wasn’t full-time but she was still part of team meetings and she’d do cooking lessons for the players at her house to assist their practical knowledge.
In 2007, Pearce moved to England to join the English Institute of Sport, where she provided full-time performance nutrition services across many sports, including athletics, synchronised swimming, hockey and cricket.
From there, she was the sports dietitian and performance nutritionist for the British Olympic Team for the Beijing Olympics in 2008 and the British Olympic Association TeamGB holding camp nutrition advisor for the 2012 London Olympics.
“To be in Beijing and to work with the athletes and be there as a support person was absolutely amazing. That was probably my first, big, appointment role,” says Pearce.
During her time in England, Pearce also got the opportunity to link up and work with a sporting organisation that had Kiwi origins – the McLaren Formula 1 team.
“Most people focus on the drivers who are very well looked after, but you have the engineers, you have the background scientific people, you have the people who are monitoring all the IT and communications, you have the pit crew who have quite an intense role and have to react quickly and have good concentration. Trying to support them all to try and stay fit and healthy and injury free is really, really important, because your background crew are as important as your other crew,” says Pearce.
After that, it was time to come home, and Pearce took up the role as senior performance nutritionist at High Performance Sport New Zealand (HPSNZ). After working on two Olympics while in England, she was well positioned to tackle the 2014 Glasgow Commonwealth Games, where she initiated and set up the preparation and recovery area which is now a regular feature of what the New Zealand Olympic Committee put in place at each major event.
“It’s really wonderful to see how it’s grown and how it’s become an integral and important part of the preparation of the athletes once they get to the Olympics or the Commonwealth Games, that they have their New Zealand space where they’re with like minded people and they don’t get lost in this mass of international athletes,” says Pearce.
As well as her royal honour, Pearce is a well-respected author and received a lifetime award for her work in establishing the international sports nutrition organisation PINES (Professionals in Nutrition for Exercise and Sport) where she served as secretary for a number of years, as well as vice president and president. PINES promotes sports nutrition across over 40 different countries.
In June 2021, Pearce re-entered the world of rugby league in which she has been such an integral part earlier, when she was appointed as an independent director for the New Zealand Rugby League.
“I’ve always been interested in governance. Having been involved in New Zealand rugby league with the Kiwis I had a good knowledge and I wanted to offer something back,” says Pearce.
“When the opportunity came up I applied and I passed the interview and that was fantastic. It was a really good experience in terms of how to think more strategically and at a higher level, because my default is to get in and get my hands dirty and do the work, but actually having to sit back and go, ok, these are the things I see coming in the future, you have to learn governance, and to be a scientist and a nutritionist in a governance role is unique as I have a different way of thinking.”
When describing her current role at HPSNZ, Pearce refers to herself as a ‘performance nutritionist’ where she specialises now in the development of younger athletes who have been identified as having potential in their chosen sport.
“I see that as the growth area for the future. Thinking about [the Olympics in] 2028 in Los Angeles and 2032 in Brisbane, we need to be looking at where these athletes are and keeping them training and engaged in the sport, so they are there to compete at those events further down the track.” says Pearce.
Pearce has seen a huge amount of change in nutrition over the decades. Ideas have come and gone and come back again many times. But one of the most important changes is awareness.
“Information and knowledge on nutrition has moved on to an extent that people get it. They understand that nutrition has a role and there is a place for it, but I think that the message that’s missing is that they don’t know how to apply it to their circumstances, their food preferences and sometimes even their sport. I think we’ve moved a lot from the generic information we had in the early days to actually now we can be more specific,” says Pearce.
“Things have shifted on where people, it looks like you’re eating normal food but actually if you closely analyse the look on the plate it changes based on different phases of training and competitions and rest days and things. I don’t think food’s changed but how we use the food and how we proportion out the food has definitely changed.”
As she supervises younger dietitians and nutritionists coming into this career, she’s clear that it’s more important than ever to have more and more professionals to deal with the nutritional challenges in society.
“A degree in nutrition is a degree for the future. There’s going to be more call and demand for people with nutrition degrees. There’s going to be more need for trusted people in this area. It may not necessarily be in the hospital systems, but I think we’re going to want very personalised, individual information going forward. It should be open to everybody, not just for those that can afford it.”