Nutritional Status of University Middle- and Long- distance Female Runners -Diet for Improvement of Iron Deficiency-

Abstract

Since the role of nutrition and meals has been thought to vary with sport athletics, nutritional intake appropriate for the individuals' characteristics has been reported to be important in the recent years. We assessed diets to improve iron deficiency in university middle- and long-distance female runners by conducting one-year follow-up of those runners and ordinary female students with regard to the nutritional intake, physique and hematological profile. No difference was observed in the BMI between the two groups, whereas the runner group had the significantly lower % of body fat. The energy, iron, vitamins B₂ and C intake was significantly higher in the runner group than in the student group, but the energy and iron intake did not meet the allowances. Neither group showed any significant change in the physique or physical composition after one year. No one exhibited manifestations of malnutrition or anemia. However, the runners who were suspected of having iron deficiency failed to achieve any improvement. The serum iron levels correlated to the amounts of iron, beans and fruits ingested, and the serum ferritin levels correlated to the amounts of greenish yellow vegetables and other vegetables ingested. In addition, a correlation between the amount of iron intake and the amounts of beans, vegetables and fishery products was observed. The above-mentioned findings indicated that it is important for the middle- and long-distance runners to have a diet providing an iron intake of over 12mg to improve iron deficiency by trying to include beans, seafood and vegetables in particular.