“Ladies competed for the primary time on the 1900 Olympic Video games in Paris,” Sharon Madigan, PhD, science lead for Crew Eire and vitamin advisor to a number of competing athletes, instructed NutraIngredients.
“Now we’re right here 124 years later in Paris, and it’s a very even break up which is implausible,” she mentioned.
As Madigan famous in a recent review, the variety of girls competing within the Olympics has grown exponentially during the last 100 years, making it much more essential to assist girls in reaching optimum efficiency.
Nonetheless, there stay giant gaps in data on dietary necessities for female and male athletes.
“One purpose for this hole is the historic bias in sports activities and train science analysis in direction of male individuals,” she acknowledged. “This has led to a poor understanding of the distinctive physiological and dietary wants of feminine athletes.”
Vitamin consumption
Many athletes may have come to the video games having rehearsed meals and devised vitamin plans, in line with Madigan, and the Olympic Village restaurant and canteen have been designed to cater to all tastes, cuisines and cultures to permit athletes to eat as they could at dwelling.
Nonetheless, in Paris’ present local weather, athletes, particularly these in endurance occasions or out of doors competitions, will want greater carbohydrate consumption to maintain efficiency, she defined, noting that that is difficult in occasions with a number of rounds or extended durations of exercise.
“The girls’s marathon will begin at 8:00 a.m. on Sunday with temperatures forecasted to succeed in 31°C,” Madigan famous. “Even skilled athletes can wrestle, as I noticed through the Rio Marathon the place some collapsed attributable to insufficient planning for hydration and cooling.
“To mitigate these dangers, medical groups are utilizing methods like offering ice slurries, sustaining carbohydrate and electrolyte ranges, and guaranteeing correct hydration.”
Carbohydrate consumption is essential, particularly in endurance sports activities, nonetheless hormonal phases in girls have an effect on carbohydrate metabolism and efficiency, as gluconeogenesis charges are greater through the follicular part than the luteal part.
Adjustments in hormone ranges all through the menstrual cycle have additionally been shown to influence water and electrolyte regulation, affecting fluid retention in feminine athletes.
“Typically talking, the important thing factor for feminine athletes right here in Paris, is fluid consumption,” Madigan famous.
Feminine athletes have distinct dietary necessities in comparison with male, nonetheless, analysis has proven that female athletes tend to have lower energy and micronutrient intake than their male counterparts.
Key micronutrients resembling iron, calcium and vitamin D are essential in a number of features of efficiency, and iron particularly is a vital facet to contemplate when making intercourse comparisons because it has important variations between women and men, Madigan mentioned,
“Ladies are extra vulnerable to iron deficiency anemia due to blood loss throughout menstruation,” she added.
Shut quarters
The Olympic village has hosted virtually 11,000 athletes plus assist workers this yr, making the chance of infections excessive, significantly respiratory ones, Madigan defined.
“We all know that respiratory tract an infection threat will increase with under-fuelling,” she mentioned.
Underfueling impacts athletes of all genders however will be significantly prevalent amongst females attributable to components like disordered consuming, misjudgment of caloric wants and dietary decisions that make it arduous to fulfill calorie necessities.
In her overview, Madigan famous that younger women’ exercise and vitamin can be affected by gender norms and female beliefs, the place they “could also be inspired to eat much less or keep away from sure meals to take care of a sure physique form or measurement.”
“Society’s idea of how individuals are anticipated to look and behave primarily based on societally created norms for masculinity and femininity can affect gender roles in sports activities,” she mentioned.
“Photos of feminine athletes are more and more employed within the advertising of sports activities vitamin merchandise, and these photographs can perpetuate unrealistic physique beliefs and have an effect on feminine athletes’ relationships with meals.”
Analysis advances
As Madigan defined throughout the recent NutraIngredients webinar on women’s health, there may be now a bigger pool of elite feminine athletes which is able to enable for extra substantial and significant analysis.
This yr’s 50/50 gender break up will hopefully help the subsequent step in addressing the shortage of feminine athlete information, particularly on the elite stage, Madigan mentioned, including that the “key will probably be extra funding for female-specific analysis.”
“Feminine analysis is dear, as you have obtained to have a look at a number of blood samples, probably a number of different sampling all through the menstrual cycle, which you do not must do for a male athlete,” she defined.
Nonetheless, there may be an rising variety of feminine researchers within the house, which Madigan hopes will assist drive analysis attributable to private vested curiosity.
