Comparison of Total Body Composition and Bone Mineral Density Measures in Female Collegiate Athletes

Abstract

Body composition and bone mineral density (BMD) are important factors in sport performance and the overall short and long-term health of athletes. Despite this function, few investigations to date have documented total body composition in female collegiate athletes. Further, we are unaware of any studies examining both total body composition and BMD in this population. PURPOSE: To generate descriptive data for total body composition and BMD in a large sample of female collegiate athletes using dual X-ray absorptiometry (DXA) and examine differences between 10 competitive sports. METHODS: A total of 211 female collegiate athletes (19±1yrs; 167.8±8.9cm; 45.9±6.1kg; 2.4% Asian, 15.2% Black, 1.4% Hispanic, 80.6% White, 0.5% Other) underwent DXA: basketball (BB; n=22), cross country (CC; n=11), field hockey (FH; n=25), gymnastics (GYM; n=23), lacrosse (LAX; n=42), soccer (SOC; n=27), swimming; (SW; n=27), tennis; (TN; n=11), track (field only); (TR; n=7), and volleyball; (VB; n=16). Descriptive statistics were calculated for total body fat percentage (BF%), and BMD. Differences in total BF% and BMD between sports were examined using a one-way Welch’s ANOVA test. Post-hoc testing was completed using the Games-Howell test. RESULTS: The mean total BF% was 27.8±5.1% (range: 23.0 - 37.5%) while BMD was 1.30±0.11g/cm2 (range: 1.17 - 1.45g/cm2); TR had the highest BF% (37.5±5.5%), followed by TN (31.1±4.0%) and LAX (29.3±3.8%), CC (23.0±6.0%) and GYM (23.5±2.9%) had the lowest. For BMD, TR had the highest (1.45±0.07g/cm2), followed by BB (1.40±0.12g/cm2) and VB (1.36±0.10g/cm2); CC (1.17±0.07g/cm2) and SW (1.22±0.06 g/cm2) had the lowest. Group mean differences in BF% (p<0.001; ω2 = 0.26) and BMD (p<0.001; ω2 = 0.35) were observed between teams. Specifically, GYM had lower BF% than BB, FH, LAX, SOC, SW, TN, and TR (mean difference range: -4.0 to -13.9%, all p<0.05). CC had lower BMD than BB, FH, GYM, LAX, SOC, TR, and FH (mean difference range: -0.11 to -0.28g/cm2, all p<0.01). CONCLUSION: Total body composition and BMD measures varied across female collegiate sports. These findings may assist sports medicine and strength and conditioning practitioners with identifying appropriate goal values for BF% and BMD in female collegiate athletes across various sports.