Intake of dietary supplements is widespread among athletes in developed countries. This study evaluated the use of dietary supplements in athletes from a developing country. Dietary supplementation practices of 113 national-level athletes age 15-35 yr in Sri Lanka were assessed. All athletes from track-and-field, badminton, football, swimming, cycling, and karate squads who consented to participate in the study were administered an anonymous questionnaire by an interviewer. Information on number of supplements taken, frequency of use, nature of product, rationale, sources of advice, and reasons for taking supplements was obtained. Most athletes (94%) consumed dietary supplements. On average, 3.7 products/day were consumed. Footballers had significantly lower intake of supplements than other athletes (footballers 71%, others 98%; p < .05). They also consumed fewer products per day (footballers 0.7, others 3.5; p < .05). Popular supplements included multivitamins, vitamin E, calcium, energy foods and drinks, and creatine. Multiple supplement use was common, with 29% athletes taking 4 products/day. The athletes sought advice on supplement use from sports doctors (45%), team coaches (40%), or friends (15%). Most took supplements to improve performance (79%), and 19% claimed to take supplements to improve their overall health status. Dietary supplement use is widespread among national-level Sri Lankan athletes. The ad hoc use of supplements indicates that educational intervention in the sporting community is essential.

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Objective:To obtain projections of the prevalence of childhood malnutrition indicators up to 2030 and to analyse the changes of wealth-based inequality in malnutrition indicators and the degree of contribution of socio-economic determinants to the inequities in malnutrition indicators in Bangladesh. Additionally, to identify the risk factors of childhood malnutrition.Design:Cross-sectional study. A Bayesian linear regression model was used to estimate trends and projections of malnutrition. For equity analysis, slope index, relative index and decomposition in concentration index were used. Multilevel logistic models were used to identify risk factors of malnutrition.Setting:Household surveys in Bangladesh from 1996 to 2014.Participants:Children under the age of 5 years.Results:A decreasing trend was observed for all malnutrition indices. In 1990, predicted prevalence of stunting, wasting and underweight was 55·0, 15·9 and 61·8 %, respectively. By 2030, prevalence is projected to reduce to 28·8 % for stunting, 12·3 % for wasting and 17·4 % for underweight. Prevalence of stunting, wasting and underweight were 34·3, 6·9 and 32·8 percentage points lower in the richest households than the poorest households. Contribution of the wealth index to child malnutrition increased over time and the largest contribution of pro-poor inequity was explained by wealth index. Being an underweight mother, parents with a lower level of education and poorer households were the key risk factors for stunting and underweight.Conclusions:Our findings show an evidence-based need for targeted interventions to improve education and household income-generating activities among poor households to reduce inequalities and reduce the burden of child malnutrition in Bangladesh.

Accuracy and precision of a combination PSEA is convincing, enabling inclusion into an Asian food atlas for dietary assessment and intervention.

Evidence on what people eat globally is limited in scope and rigour, especially as it relates to children and adolescents. This impairs target setting and investment in evidence-based actions to support healthy sustainable diets. Here we quantified global, regional and national dietary patterns among children and adults, by age group, sex, education and urbanicity, across 185 countries between 1990 and 2018, on the basis of data from the Global Dietary Database project. Our primary measure was the Alternative Healthy Eating Index, a validated score of diet quality; Dietary Approaches to Stop Hypertension and Mediterranean Diet Score patterns were secondarily assessed. Dietary quality is generally modest worldwide. In 2018, the mean global Alternative Healthy Eating Index score was 40.3, ranging from 0 (least healthy) to 100 (most healthy), with regional means ranging from 30.3 in Latin America and the Caribbean to 45.7 in South Asia. Scores among children versus adults were generally similar across regions, except in Central/Eastern Europe and Central Asia, high-income countries, and the Middle East and Northern Africa, where children had lower diet quality. Globally, diet quality scores were higher among women versus men, and more versus less educated individuals. Diet quality increased modestly between 1990 and 2018 globally and in all world regions except in South Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa, where it did not improve.