Differences in Consumption Behaviour of Dietary Supplements in Competitive Athletes Depends on Sports Discipline

Abstract

Background: The consumption of dietary supplements (DS) is widespread among the general population and competitive athletes. However, only a few competitive athletes seek information from experts about the effects and use of DS. Furthermore, it is currently unknown whether certain sports have a higher affinity for DS than others.

Methods: This study aimed to identify differences between different sports categories and subgroups that may have a very high affinity for DS. For this purpose, competitive athletes were surveyed. The survey included the type of sport, the training frequency, the number of competitions, the consumption behaviour of five DS categories (general health, regeneration promotion, performance enhancement, booster, and weight loss) as well as personal data such as biological sex and age. Subsequently, correlations, configural frequencies (CFA), and multiple correspondence analyses (MCA) were used to identify subgroups with a high affinity of consumption behaviour.

Results: A total of 409 questionnaires could be evaluated. It was found that all DS categories except weight loss were related. In addition, it was observed that in sports from the power category and from the endurance category, there was even higher consumption behaviour than in other sports categories. Male power athletes in particular have a higher affinity for consuming DS than other subgroups.

Conclusions: This study shows that there is a clear different consumption behaviour depending on the type of sport. Male power athletes in particular are the subgroup with the greatest consumption behaviour and therefore require special education on the effects and use of DS. This subgroup in particular should receive increased attention in counselling on DS to minimise the possible risks of DS use.

Keywords: consumption behaviour; dietary categories; dietary supplements; sports categories.

Figure 1

Bubble plot of reported training frequency and training volume.

Figure 2

Boxplots of supplement consumption grouped by sports categories. The red line shows the median of all participants. Sports categories power and endurance have a higher median than the other categories.

Figure 3

Mosaic plot for frequency analysis of the consumption of the supplement categories “Diet”, “Reg”, “Perf” and “Boost”. Each supplement category could be answered with yes or no. At the top left is the number of participants who answered no to all four categories. On the bottom right, all categories with yes. The grey colour means the actual number of responses is the same as the expected number of responses. Dark blue markers mean that significantly more responses were identified than expected. Dark red marks mean significantly fewer responses were identified than expected.

Figure 4

Multiple correspondence analyses (MCA) of supplements categories, training frequencies, sex, age, and sports category (cat). blue are general categories and red specific for supplement categories.

Figure 5

Interaction of different sports categories, sex, and dietary categories. Analysis shows that male strength athletes consume supplements from all categories (except WtLoss). Green are the categories of sex (male or female) and sport type (Power, Endur, Tech, Combat, Misc), red are dichotomous variable of the supplement categories (yes or no).