Dietary intake of professional Australian football athletes surrounding body composition assessment

Abstract

BackgroundSports Dietitians aim to assist in improving performance by developing nutrition knowledge (NK), enhancing dietary intake and optimising body composition of athletes. In a high-pressure environment, it is important to identify factors that may compromise an athlete’s nutrition status. Body composition assessments are regularly undertaken in sport to provide feedback on training adaptions; however, no research has explored the impact of these assessments on the dietary intake of professional athletes.MethodsThis cross-sectional study assessed dietary intake (7-day food diary), nutrition knowledge (Nutrition for Sport Knowledge Questionnaire) and body composition (Dual-energy X-ray absorptiometry) of 46 professional male Australian football (AFL) athletes during a 2017 pre-season training week (7 days) where body composition assessments were undertaken. Dietary intake was assessed against International Olympic Committee recommendations for professional athletes.ResultsOverall, no athlete met dietary their recommended energy intake (15 ± 1.1 vs. 9.1 ± 1.8 MJ, respectively) or carbohydrate recommendations (6–10 vs. 2.4 ± 0.9 g·kg-1·day-1). Only 54% met protein recommendations. Secondary analyses demonstrated significant associations between education status and energy intake (P < 0.04) and vegetable intake (P < 0.03), with higher levels of education being associated with higher intakes. A moderately positive association was observed between NK scores and meeting estimated energy requirements (r = 0.33, P = 0.03). NK scores were also positively associated with protein (r = 0.35, P = 0.02), fibre (r = 0.51, P = 0.001) and calcium intakes (r = 0.43, P = 0.004).ConclusionsThis research identified that the dietary intake of professional AFL athletes during a pre-season training week where body composition assessments were undertaken did not meet current recommendations. Several factors may influence the dietary intake of AFL athletes, including lower education levels, poor NK and dietary intake restriction surrounding body composition assessment. Athletes may require support to continue with performance-based nutrition plans in periods surrounding body composition assessment.

Selected personal conditions determining the frequency of consuming groups of products among athletes professionally training individual sports disciplines

“…Potential food shortages in this area may generate decreased exercise capacity owing to the special role of carbohydrates in the energy of physical exercise, of calcium in regulating skeletal muscle contractions, and of antioxidant vitamins in eliminating the effects of oxidative stress developing under the conditions of intense physical exercise [1][2][3][4][5]. the observed nutritional anomalies corresponded with tendencies described by other authors in various groups of athletes performing team and individual disciplines, including Polish team sports players [9,13,14], professional English footballers [15], professional british rugby players [16], Australian football players [17], Lithuanian sportsmen of endurance disciplines [18], women training medium-and long-distance running [19], racecar drivers [20], and Portuguese athletes [21]. the following were found in the case of the Lithuanian endurance disciplines: carbohydrate deficiencies (80.8%) and excess fats, saturated fatty acids and cholesterol (> 70%) [18].…”

Dietary mistakes of Polish athletes in relation to the frequency of consuming foods recommended in the Swiss food pyramid for active people

“…Mistakes and qualitative nutritional errors found in the examined group of athletes, generally corresponded to the trends described in other studies conducted at both Polish and foreign centres, among competitive athletes of various disciplines. In these studies, the inadequate consumption of some groups of foods with high nutritional density was confirmed, including vegetables and fruits, wholegrains, dairy products and fish, considering Polish athletes participating in team [13] and individual disciplines [18], as well as Spanish [44], Iranian [27] and Portuguese athletes [34], as well as English and Australian footballers [26,35], Irish and British rugby players [1,45], Lithuanian athletes of endurance disciplines [3], women training mediumand long-distance running [22] and rally drivers [2].…”

Australian team sports athletes prefer dietitians, the internet and nutritionists for sports nutrition information

“…Previous research has shown that Australian athletes have low NK scores and fail to comply with best‐practice sports nutrition guidelines . As NK is one factor that can influence nutrition behaviour, it is pertinent to explore the preferred information sources that athletes use, and how preferences influence NK.…”

“…Data for previous sources of advice, preferred sources of nutrition information and preferred types of nutritioneducation support were assessed for the whole cohort and stratified based on age (17)(18)(19)(20)(21)(22)(23)(24)(25)(26)(27)(28)(29)(30)(31)(32)(33)(34)(35), ≥36 years), gender (male, female), level of education (high school, diploma and university), and level of sport played (elite, non-elite). Differences in these responses based on participant characteristics were assessed using χ 2 analysis.…”