Noll M, et al. – An appraisal was performed of the impact of sport modalities, sports performance, and non–exercise–related determinant, on eating patterns and nutrient intake outcomes among adolescent competitive athletes. The findings revealed that athletes were unable to adjust their nutrient intake or food choice to the demands of the training load or various training sessions. In contrast, the sport modalities notably affected the nutrient intake. The data with regard to the demographic determinants were inconsistent and hence remained inconclusive.

Methods

• Data was extracted from the PubMed and Scopus databases for the last 20 years.
• The selected studies were observational and intervention studies of all languages on eating patterns and nutrient intake in adolescent (10- to 19-year-old) competitive athletes.
• Analysis was performed of the study quality and risk of bias via a Downs and Black instrument.
• The Grading of Recommendations, Assessment, Development and Evaluations (GRADE) evidence system examined the strength of the body of evidence.

Results

• In terms of outcomes of 21 included articles, 95.2% of studies targeted nutrient analysis.
• In contrast, few studies reported eating patterns.
• As determinants, most studies assessed the impact of sport-related (n = 10) and demographic factors (n = 8), among which only sport modalities correlated prominently with nutrient intake.
• Age and sex were not notably related to the nutrient intake.
• All studies were observational, and most were cross-sectional (n = 17) and conducted in developed countries such as the United States and European nations.
• Maximum studies assessed boys.
• Soccer received maximum attention.