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. 1991 Sep;25(3):154–158. doi: 10.1136/bjsm.25.3.154

Dietary intakes of age-group swimmers.

J A Hawley 1, M M Williams 1
PMCID: PMC1478842  PMID: 1777785

Abstract

The purposes of this study were to collect information regarding the dietary habits of male and female age-group swimmers and report the energy consumptions of these athletes in relation to their daily training demands. Twenty competitive swimmers, who were training 6000 m per day 6 days a week, recorded all fluid and food consumed during a 4-day period. Dietary analysis revealed that 11 swimmers (55%) had calcium intakes below recommended dietary allowances (RDA), while 13 (65%) had iron intakes lower than RDA. Despite identical training loads and body mass, male swimmers had significantly greater (P = 0.004) daily mean (s.d.) energy consumption (3072(732) kcal, 12.9(3.1) MJ) than females (2130(544) kcal, 8.9(2.3) MJ) and were maintaining energy balance. Although the contribution of carbohydrate to total daily energy intake was the same for male (55%) and female swimmers (56%), the females ingested significantly less (P = 0.011) carbohydrate (292(87) g) than the males (404(88) g) and could be considered deficient in dietary carbohydrate with respect to their daily training demands.

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Selected References

These references are in PubMed. This may not be the complete list of references from this article.

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