Evaluación y evolución nutricional de población deportista del sur de España

Resumen

Adequate nutrition and physical activity are two fundamental pillars in the current concept of health that in the athlete, will also determine the physical performance. The need to optimize the health and performance of athletes, together with the expansion of information, sometimes not true, on sports nutrition, justify the detailed analysis of the eating habits carried out by these men and women in order to to determine if they follow the pertinent recommendations, and, if not, to design the most favorable strategies to reaching them. Objective: To value life and feeding habits and physical activity as well as nutritional state and diet quality on federated sportsmen of the south Spain, to verify if they adjust to the expected ones for sports population. Material and methods: The final sample was 192 federated athletes in the Region of Murcia. A specific questionnaire was designed to collect sociodemographic, physical activity, eating habits and intake data, including 3 R24h and one FFQ. The energy expenditure and body composition of were estimated using the materials and methods proposed by the ISAK. The quality of the diet was assessed using the DAS, DAQS, MDS, MDP, KIDMED, and DQI-I indexes. The statistical treatment included data clearance, normality, descriptive and statistical inference tests and validation of the FFQ against the 3 R24h. Results: The socio-demographic, body composition and physical activity characteristics of study population have been described, as well as their health and eating habits. The intake of food, energy and nutrients has been determined, comparing them with the recommendations and with other researches. The quality of the diet, its suitability and its relationship with body composition values has been estimated. Conclusions: Body composition is improvable, appearing overweight in all groups. The subjects of the study population have improvable eating habits and there seems to be an inverted pattern of energy intake and expenditure. The study population exceeds the recommended intake of red meats, sausages, sweets and fats (other than olive oil) and does not reach farinaceous, fruits, vegetables and nuts ones. This suggests an attempt to control the consumption of foods falsely considered "less important" or "fattening". There is no energy balance which again suggests an unsuccessful and poorly focused attempt to control body composition, considering the average fat percentage data, resulting in deficient magnesium, calcium, iron, iodine, vitamin D and vitamin E intake, so important for the bone balance and antioxidant action in the athlete. Only the minors reach the hidric recommendations, even when considering the use of isotonic drinks. Less than a half of study population is usually supplemented, especially with sports drinks. Protein and amino acid supplements appear then. The diet quality on study population is, in general, medium and no correlation was found with the body composition of the participants. The athletes under study would not be considered as such from the nutritional perspective. Professional dietary and nutritional advice is necessary to prevent athletes from following low- scientific profile recommendations that hinder the optimization of optimal body composition and the absorption of training loads, two key players in achieving sporting success.