Led by PhD candidate Jana Daher below the supervision of Dr. Dalia El Khoury on the College of Guelph in Canada, the analysis supplied insights that will inform future instructional initiatives and trade practices.
“Our findings indicated that the web vitamin training program considerably improved varsity athletes’ intentions, attitudes and perceived behavioral management in the direction of dietary complement use,” Daher advised NutraIngredients.
Background and research targets
Whereas varsity athletes are a major demographic of dietary complement customers, their complement use stays underresearched, Daher stated.
“We consider that understanding the motivations and key determinants behind complement use amongst athletes is essential for growing efficient interventions to affect and modify these behaviors,” she added.
Given the potential advantages and dangers related to complement use, it’s essential to know the components that affect varied athletes’ complement decisions, the authors wrote.
Particularly, athletes typically depend on dietary supplements to boost efficiency, restoration or general well being. But, they could not all the time have entry to correct, evidence-based info, the authors famous, including that “the prevalence of misinformation will increase the chance of uninformed or probably dangerous decisions.”
Main targets of the web vitamin program outlined within the research:
- Lower athletes’ attitudes towards the performance-enhancement potential of dietary supplements
- Improve athletes’ notion that teammates, coaches and mentor varsity athletes are taking dietary dietary supplements provided that wanted and below steering (after weight-reduction plan alone has been thought-about)
- Teammates, coaches and mentor varsity athletes help them not taking dietary dietary supplements besides if wanted and below steering
- Improve athletes’ perceived behavioral management and readiness to seek the advice of a healthcare skilled (i.e., sports activities physician, registered dietitian, and so forth.) when dealing with behavioral, cognitive, emotional and social obstacles that affect their decision-making course of with respect to dietary dietary supplements
- Improve athletes’ intention to take vitamins wanted from weight-reduction plan first earlier than contemplating dietary dietary supplements
Examine methodology
To develop the web training program content material, the analysis crew used the latest accessible analysis proof, Daher stated.
This system consisted of 4 models which every coated a key matter:
- Vitamin in Sports activities: offering an summary of basic power and macronutrient suggestions for athletes
- Water and Hydration in Sports activities: highlighting the significance of hydration in sports activities, recognizing indicators of dehydration and implementing correct hydration methods
- Dietary Dietary supplements: exploring the definition of dietary dietary supplements, their potential results on athletic efficiency and why complement use just isn’t all the time crucial
- Dangers Related to Dietary Complement Use: addressing potential dangers, offering assets for evaluating complement security and outlining steps athletes ought to take to make knowledgeable choices concerning supplementation
Making use of the Idea of Deliberate Habits
Because the research authors wrote, these targets have been based mostly on the normative, behavioral and management beliefs proposed by the Idea of Deliberate Habits.
Daher defined that the speculation “served because the conceptual framework to design our intervention,” emphasizing “the position of three constructs—attitudes, subjective norms and perceived behavioral management—in shaping a person’s intentions to carry out a sure conduct.”
For instance, she stated that the researchers aimed to positively affect the athletes’ attitudes in the direction of dietary supplementation “by offering evidence-based details about the precise advantages and dangers of dietary supplements, whereas additionally addressing misconceptions.”
Findings: Shaping attitudes and intentions
Daher stated that this system “decreased contributors’ optimistic attitudes in the direction of the power of dietary dietary supplements to enhance efficiency or well being,” and “strengthened their notion of their skill to regulate the choice to make use of or not use dietary dietary supplements.”
These insights supply a precious basis for growing instructional supplies by dietary complement producers and suppliers.
“Our outcomes recommend that athletes usually tend to make knowledgeable choices about complement use when supplied with evidence-based info,” Daher stated.
“Producers and suppliers may benefit from growing instructional supplies that problem misconceptions and spotlight the significance of knowledgeable decision-making.”
Challenges and future instructions
One limitation of the web program was the contributors’ lack of ability to ask real-time questions. To handle this problem, the researchers purposely designed this system’s content material to be written in language that was clear and simple to know for better participant accessibility, Daher stated.
An exterior OpenEd crew additionally reviewed this system, she added, “who usually are not specialists within the area, to make sure that the fabric was understandable to a wider viewers.”
“Future analysis may benefit from recruiting a extra numerous participant pool to discover potential characteristic-based variations, comparable to variations within the intervention’s affect based mostly on age, intercourse and sports activities crew.”
Trade collaboration for accountable complement use
The research highlighted alternatives for collaboration to advertise knowledgeable complement use.
“Producers and suppliers can play a vital position in selling accountable complement use by collaborating with researchers to create evidence-based instructional supplies,” Daher stated.
“They will work with tutorial establishments and specialists within the area to make sure that the knowledge they supply to athletes is correct, up-to-date, and free from advertising bias.”
Daher additionally pointed to the position of trade in supporting analysis initiatives.
“Producers can help analysis by funding research that assess the efficacy and security of dietary supplements in athletic contexts and work with researchers to disseminate findings that promote a extra balanced, fact-driven strategy to complement use,” she stated.
This analysis was funded by the Seeding Funding Grant by the School of Social and Utilized Human Sciences on the College of Guelph.
Supply: Vitamins, 2025, 17, 557. doi: 10.3390/nu17030557, “An On-line Vitamin Schooling Program Focusing on Intentions and Associated Determinants In the direction of Dietary Complement Use: An Software of the Idea of Deliberate Habits.” Authors: Daher, J.; Mountjoy, M.; El Khoury, D.
