Basketball is a popular team sport worldwide. Nutrition is one of the key aspects for the optimization of performance and subsequent recovery. Female athletes have unique nutritional requirements as a result of daily training and competition, in addition to the specific demands of gender-related physiological changes. However, inadequate, or erroneous nutritional behaviours are commonly observed. Thus, the aim of our work is to provide concise nutritional recommendations for female basketball players. Based on a review of the literature, there is limited evidence that comprehensively assesses health attributes as well as behaviours, habits, and nutritional knowledge of physical activity by gender in basketball players. Recent research highlights the need for nutritional strategies to develop tools to help manage energy deficiency in women’s sports. We suggest that individual adjustment of dietary energy value is the key factor in the physical performance of female basketball players; information that could be used to optimize the training process and health maintenance. The recommended intake for athletes involved in moderate levels of training, such as elite basketball players (2-3 h/day for 5-6 times/week), is 50-80 kcal·(kg·day)^-1, with specific recommendations of 1.6-1.8 g·(kg·day)^-1 protein. For physically active women, it is recommended that 1.2-2 g·(kg·day)^-1 of protein be consumed, with fat intake of 20-35% of total kilocalories and 5-8 g·(kg·day)^-1 of carbohydrate to adequately meet performance demands.

Outdoor play during childhood is vital for physical, cognitive, and social development. Outdoor play is influenced by friends, though the relationship between outdoor play and the number of close friends is not clear. This study aimed to investigate the association between peer group size and outdoor play among children aged 9–12 years. This study was cross-sectional in design. We recruited fourth- to sixth-grade children from two public elementary schools. Outdoor play contents and duration on weekdays were collected via a questionnaire, and the total duration of outdoor play on five weekdays was calculated. We asked the children to nominate up to 10 of their closest friends. We calculated the peer group size as the total number of reciprocal closest friends for each child. A multivariate linear regression analysis was conducted to investigate the association between peer group size and outdoor play duration, adjusted for gender, grade, school, body mass index, sports club participation, and screen time. This study included 291 children (137 girls, mean age: 10.6 ± 1.0 years). The peer group size was associated with outdoor play duration after adjusting for confounding factors (β: 0.18, 95% CI: 0.07-0.30). This study revealed that children aged 9–12 years, with larger peer group size showed a significantly longer duration of outdoor play.

Physical training changes the metabolic state, but such changes are difficult to quantify directly and non-invasively in humans. This study therefore used breath tests with ¹³C stable isotope glucose to assess glucose metabolism in endurance athletes. Our breath test measured the ratio of ¹³C to ¹²C in CO₂ from expired air to derive ¹³C excretion per unit time. We compared ¹³C excretion levels between long-distance runners (runner group) and non-trained healthy males (control group), in both conditions with and without 50 g oral glucose loading (OGL). The ¹³C excretion was lower in the runner group than in the control group throughout the 6-hour period, regardless of OGL. Therefore, the area under the curve, which indicates total excretion, was lower in the runner group. There are many reports related to the adaptation of glucose metabolism in training (including gluconeogenesis, glucose transport to the liver and muscle, and glycogen synthesis). Our study showed that this breath test could be a simple and convenient way to monitor the overall glucose metabolic adaptation state in the athlete body.