Prevalence Of Supplementation, Nutrition Knowledge And Behaviors Among Physically Active College Students

PURPOSE: To describe dietary practices, knowledge, and reasons among physically active college students. METHODS: A 50-item online survey was conducted in fall 2020. Physically active US college students reported demographic, anthropometric, sports participation and dietary information. Nutrition knowledge survey questions were adapted from the Sports Nutrition Knowledge Questionnaire (SNKQ). The Eating Attitudes Survey (EAT) was completed by a subset of participants. Data was analyzed using R. RESULTS: Out of 425 participants who took the survey, complete responses were provided by 133 (117 nonvegetarian (NON) and 16 vegetarian (VEG)) females and 47 (43 NON and 4 VEG) males. VEG had significantly higher supplement use (66%) than NON group (35.9%) (p < .001); however, for supplement users, NON took significantly more total supplements (2.9) than VEG (1.7) (p = .04) . For VEG, top supplements were multivitamin (MVM), B12, and iron. For NON, MVM, D, probiotic, fish oil and creatine were most used. VEG males scored significantly higher on SNKQ than NON males (18.8 vs. 14.5, p = .02), while SNKQ did not differ between females. Although female VEG had significantly lower BMI (21.3) than NON (23.8, p = .02), EAT score did not significantly differ by dietary pattern among both genders. CONCLUSION: Although research finds that VEG diet, sports participation, and living during COVID-19 increase risk of disordered eating behavior, which can lead to nutrient deficiencies and performance declines, our data suggests increased knowledge, awareness of needs, and healthy perceptions on eating behavior among VEG group. Notably, use of commonly recommended supplements for VEG dietary pattern (MVM, p = .01; B12, p < .001; and iron, p = .01) was significantly higher in VEG. Despite this higher prevalence, only 20-25% of VEG use these supplements; thus, further study on dietary information sources and strategies to determine necessity of supplementation in both dietary groups is needed. The research team is grateful to members of the NDEP and CPSDA organizations who were willing to share the survey with students.