Abstract
International travel and short-term residence overseas is now a common feature of an elite athlete’s competition schedule, however, food choice away from home may be challenging and potentially impact on performance. Guidelines for dietary intake specific to competition exist for athletes, however, there is little evidence available to ascertain if athletes meet these recommendations during competition periods, particularly when food is provided in-house. During the Delhi 2010 Commonwealth Games, dietitians based in the dining hall recorded 24 h dietary recalls with all athletes who visited the nutrition kiosk. Analysis of dietary intake was conducted with FoodWorks (Xyris Pty Ltd., Brisbane, Australia). Overall, athletes reported consuming a median total daily energy intake of 8674 kJ (range 2384–18,009 kJ), with carbohydrate within the range of 1.0–9.0 g per kg of bodyweight (g/kg) (median = 3.8) and contributing to 50% total energy (TE) (range 14%–79%). Protein and fat intake ranged from 0.3–4.0 g/kg (median = 1.7) to 10–138 g (median = 67 g), and contributed to 21% TE (range 8%–48%) and 24% TE (range 8%–44%), respectively. Athletes reported consuming between 4 and 29 different food items (median = 15) in the previous 24 h period, with predominately discretionary, grains/cereals, meats, poultry, fish, eggs, and meat alternative items. This suggests that dairy, fruit, and vegetable intake may be suboptimal and intake of the micronutrients iron, zinc, calcium, and vitamins A and C may be of concern for a number of athletes.
Highlights
International travel and short-term residence overseas is a common feature of an athlete’s competition schedule, differing eating arrangements and food options when away from home may influence an athlete’s food choice, and potentially their performance
While sport-specific recommendations exist for athletes to ensure that they consume sufficient total energy (TE) to meet requirements, carbohydrate (CHO) to replenish glycogen stores, protein to aid in muscle repair and growth, as well as fluid to stay adequately hydrated [1,3,4,5,6,7,8,9], very little evidence is available to ascertain if athletes meet these recommendations in residence during major international competitions
Athletes who requested assistance at the nutrition kiosk at a major international competition generally had a poor variety of foods, distribution of, and in some cases inadequate intake of, energy, macro, and micronutrients
Summary
International travel and short-term residence overseas is a common feature of an athlete’s competition schedule, differing eating arrangements and food options when away from home may influence an athlete’s food choice, and potentially their performance. There appears to be considerable individual variability in dietary intake, the majority of studies to date show that athletes tend on average to meet current evidence-based recommendations for protein, but not CHO [10,11,12,13,14]. This is evident in females [15]. Discrepancies exist between methods of data collection (for example a 24 h recall vs. 7 days weighed food diaries), whether the athlete is in Nutrients 2016, 8, 638; doi:10.3390/nu8100638 www.mdpi.com/journal/nutrients
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