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The Impact of a Nutritional Intervention Program on Eating Behaviors in Italian Athletes

A balanced diet is a fundamental component of athletes’ health, training, and performance. The majority of athletes choose adequate quantities of macronutrients but, at the same time, do not respect World Health Organization dietary guidelines, eating a lot of discretionary food and not drinking eno...

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Autores principales: Terenzio, Annalisa, Cassera, Alice, Gervasoni, Adriano, Pozzi, Alessandra, Orlando, Antonina, Greco, Andrea, Palestini, Paola, Cazzaniga, Emanuela
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: MDPI 2021
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8303861/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34299762
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ijerph18147313
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author Terenzio, Annalisa
Cassera, Alice
Gervasoni, Adriano
Pozzi, Alessandra
Orlando, Antonina
Greco, Andrea
Palestini, Paola
Cazzaniga, Emanuela
author_facet Terenzio, Annalisa
Cassera, Alice
Gervasoni, Adriano
Pozzi, Alessandra
Orlando, Antonina
Greco, Andrea
Palestini, Paola
Cazzaniga, Emanuela
author_sort Terenzio, Annalisa
collection PubMed
description A balanced diet is a fundamental component of athletes’ health, training, and performance. The majority of athletes choose adequate quantities of macronutrients but, at the same time, do not respect World Health Organization dietary guidelines, eating a lot of discretionary food and not drinking enough water. Athletes need more nutritional education to improve the quality of their food choice. By modifying their eating habits, they could also enhance their performance. Our study aimed to evaluate the impact of nutritional intervention on eating habits in a group of Northern Italian athletes. A sample of 87 athletes (41 males and 46 females) aged 16.5 ± 2.9 was enrolled. We organized meetings and detected eating habits (before and after the meetings) using a food frequencies questionnaire. We found that nutritional intervention positively affected participants consumption of vegetables (p < 0.05), nuts (p < 0.001), legumes (p < 0.001), and fish (p < 0.05). Other aspects of the athletes’ eating habits were not significantly improved. Some gender differences were found; males increased their consumption of vegetables (p < 0.05) and nuts (p < 0.001), while females increased their intake of legumes (p < 0.001). Our finding suggested that nutritional intervention could promote healthy eating habits among athletes. If sports nutrition experts, coaches, personal trainers, sports medicine experts, and athletes cooperated, they could guarantee athletes’ health status.
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spelling pubmed-83038612021-07-25 The Impact of a Nutritional Intervention Program on Eating Behaviors in Italian Athletes Terenzio, Annalisa Cassera, Alice Gervasoni, Adriano Pozzi, Alessandra Orlando, Antonina Greco, Andrea Palestini, Paola Cazzaniga, Emanuela Int J Environ Res Public Health Article A balanced diet is a fundamental component of athletes’ health, training, and performance. The majority of athletes choose adequate quantities of macronutrients but, at the same time, do not respect World Health Organization dietary guidelines, eating a lot of discretionary food and not drinking enough water. Athletes need more nutritional education to improve the quality of their food choice. By modifying their eating habits, they could also enhance their performance. Our study aimed to evaluate the impact of nutritional intervention on eating habits in a group of Northern Italian athletes. A sample of 87 athletes (41 males and 46 females) aged 16.5 ± 2.9 was enrolled. We organized meetings and detected eating habits (before and after the meetings) using a food frequencies questionnaire. We found that nutritional intervention positively affected participants consumption of vegetables (p < 0.05), nuts (p < 0.001), legumes (p < 0.001), and fish (p < 0.05). Other aspects of the athletes’ eating habits were not significantly improved. Some gender differences were found; males increased their consumption of vegetables (p < 0.05) and nuts (p < 0.001), while females increased their intake of legumes (p < 0.001). Our finding suggested that nutritional intervention could promote healthy eating habits among athletes. If sports nutrition experts, coaches, personal trainers, sports medicine experts, and athletes cooperated, they could guarantee athletes’ health status. MDPI 2021-07-08 /pmc/articles/PMC8303861/ /pubmed/34299762 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ijerph18147313 Text en © 2021 by the authors. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
spellingShingle Article
Terenzio, Annalisa
Cassera, Alice
Gervasoni, Adriano
Pozzi, Alessandra
Orlando, Antonina
Greco, Andrea
Palestini, Paola
Cazzaniga, Emanuela
The Impact of a Nutritional Intervention Program on Eating Behaviors in Italian Athletes
title The Impact of a Nutritional Intervention Program on Eating Behaviors in Italian Athletes
title_full The Impact of a Nutritional Intervention Program on Eating Behaviors in Italian Athletes
title_fullStr The Impact of a Nutritional Intervention Program on Eating Behaviors in Italian Athletes
title_full_unstemmed The Impact of a Nutritional Intervention Program on Eating Behaviors in Italian Athletes
title_short The Impact of a Nutritional Intervention Program on Eating Behaviors in Italian Athletes
title_sort impact of a nutritional intervention program on eating behaviors in italian athletes
topic Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8303861/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34299762
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ijerph18147313
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