Diet quality of NCAA Division I athletes assessed by the Healthy Eating Index.

Optimizing diet quality is an important concept for college athletes. Purpose: To evaluate dietary quality of National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) Division I athletes. Methods: Total 94 college athletes (n= 21 male, 73 female) from 19 different varsity teams at a single university completed a 24-hour dietary recall using the Automated Self-Administered 24-hour (ASA24) Dietary Assessment Tool. Diet quality was assessed using the Healthy Eating Index (HEI) with higher scores indicating better diet quality (range 0-100). Results: The average HEI score for the total sample was 59.2 ± 16.6 and only nine athletes achieved an HEI score ≥ 80. There were no significant differences in HEI scores between sexes, class, majors, sport played, or those who did or did not report taking previous nutrition coursework. Conclusions: The dietary quality was poor based on US dietary guidelines for the general population, which could have negative effects on health and performance.

Assessment of nutrition knowledge in division I college athletes.

OBJECTIVE: Assess nutrition knowledge of Division I college athletes. PARTICIPANTS: 128 student-athletes (n = 70 female) from eight sports completed the survey in June 2018. METHODS: The survey by Calella et al (2017) was used to assess both general and sport nutrition knowledge. RESULTS: Cases with more than 20% of responses missing were excluded (n = 3). Overall average score was 57.6% ± 18.6%. Females scored significantly (p < 0.001) better than the males (66.5% ± 16.4% versus 46.2% ± 14.7%). Participants were divided into revenue (football, ice hockey, male's basketball, women's basketball; n = 63) and non-revenue sports (field hockey, golf, rowing, soccer; n = 62) to address differences in knowledge between sports with greater versus lesser nutrition resource access. Revenue sports scored significantly (p < 0.001) worse than non-revenue sports (45.7% ± 15.2% versus 69.7% ± 13.1%). CONCLUSIONS: Athletes appear to have low nutrition knowledge, putting them at risk for inappropriate dietary choices that could decrease ability to optimally perform and increase risk of injury.