Dietary Intake of Vegan and Non-Vegan Endurance Runners-Results from the NURMI Study (Step 2)

Abstract

Nowadays, the growing popularity of distance running has been accompanied by the increasing prevalence of vegan and vegetarian diets, especially among endurance athletes. The present study aimed to examine the association between diet type and dietary intake of distance runners competing at distances longer than 10 km. From a total of 317 participants, 211 endurance runners (57% females) were considered the final sample after applying the exclusion criteria. Runners were assigned to three groups based on the self-reported diet types: 95 omnivores, 40 vegetarians, and 76 vegans. Data collection was conducted using an online survey with questions about sociodemographic information, dietary intake, and dietary-associated motives. A comprehensive food frequency questionnaire with 53 food groups (categorized in 14 basic-plus three umbrella-food clusters) was used to assess dietary intake. Vegan runners had a higher intake of "beans and seeds", "fruit and vegetables", and "dairy alternatives", as well as lower intakes of "oils" than other two groups. Vegetarian runners had a lower intake of "dairy products" and "eggs" than omnivores. A greater intake of "alcohol" and a lower intake of "meat alternatives" was observed in omnivorous runners compared to vegans and vegetarians. Despite the existence of a tendency toward the consumption of health-related food clusters by vegan runners, further investigations are needed to verify the predominance of vegans in health-oriented dietary patterns.

Keywords: athletes; dietary assessment; dietary patterns; endurance running; food frequency; health; lifestyle; marathon; nutrition; plant-based diet.

Figure 1

Participants’ enrollment and classifications by kind of diet.

Figure 2

Forest plots with 95% of confidence interval to show the differences between omnivores, vegetarians, and vegans in basic (left column) and umbrella (right column) food clusters. Omnivorous group considered as reference with differences based on variations of vegetarians and vegans from omnivores. FC—food clusters.