Abstract
While athletes’ nutrient intakes have been widely reported, few studies have assessed the diet quality of athletes. This is the first study to evaluate the diet quality of athletes using the purpose-built Athlete Diet Index (ADI). A convenience sample of 165 elite athletes from Australian sporting institutions completed the ADI online, with subsequent automated results provided to their respective accredited sports dietitians (ASDs). At the completion of athlete participation, ASDs (n = 12) responded to a range of survey items using a Likert scale (i.e., 1 = strongly agree to 5 = strongly disagree) to determine the suitability of the ADI in practice. Differences in ADI scores for demographics and sport-specific variables were investigated using independent t-tests, analysis of variance (ANOVA) and Bonferroni multiple comparisons. Spearman’s rank correlation was used to assess the association between total scores and demographics. The mean total ADI score was 91.4 ± 12.2 (range 53–117, out of a possible 125). While there was no difference in total scores based on demographics or sport-specific variables; team sport athletes scored higher than individual sport athletes (92.7 vs. 88.5, p < 0.05). Athletes training fewer hours (i.e., 0–11 h/week) scored higher on Dietary Habits sub-scores compared with athletes training more hours (≥12 h/week; p < 0.05), suggesting that athletes who train longer may be at risk of a compromised dietary pattern or less than optimal nutrition practices that support training. Most (75%) ASDs surveyed strongly agreed with the perceived utility of the ADI for screening athletes and identifying areas for nutrition support, confirming its suitability for use in practice.
Highlights
IntroductionDetailed dietary assessment methods, such as the food record (FR), dietary recall and in-depth interviews, are time consuming and difficult to undertake accurately in athletes [4,5,6]
We found that mean total Athlete Diet Index (ADI) scores were higher for those athletes who scored ≥ 8 in the dietary indicator components for calcium and iron
This study demonstrates that athletes had high overall ADI scores and that the self-administered dietary assessment tool can provide a useful way to rapidly evaluate usual dietary intake and dietary habits of athletes
Summary
Detailed dietary assessment methods, such as the food record (FR), dietary recall and in-depth interviews, are time consuming and difficult to undertake accurately in athletes [4,5,6]. The provision of nutrition servicing in high-performance sporting programs is often limited by funding and the allocation of resources [1,2,7]. Technology-based dietary assessment methods have the potential to reduce the time associated with dietary assessment [8], enhance participant compliance [6,9], and allow real-time data collection [10], thereby offering a practical and efficient approach for sports dietitians who typically support numerous athletes in high-performance sporting programs
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