Ideal diet versus athletic performance: a study about nutritional stereotypes applied by triathletes

Abstract

Stereotype is a term designated to some generalized perceptions that people attri-bute to another individual, groups, objects and/or events. Objective: The purpose of this study was to evaluate the priorities that nutritionist and triathletes attributed to food to enhance the sport performance. Method: The sample was composed by 56 subjects, splited in two groups: Nutritionists (G1, n = 29) and Triathletes (G2, n = 27). The Intake Food Priority Question-naire (QPA), composed by food groups, was used to evaluate the importance of each food in the athletic performance. Results: To the data analysis, each food was grouped into one of the eight categories designed in nutrition pyramid. An arithmetic means were elaborated to categories and it was performed t tests for independent samples to compare nutritionists and triathletes priorities about each category. There were no differences between groups in Vegetables, Leguminous, Fruits and Sugar/Candies categories and, also, to the black coffee item. However, the triathletes overestimated the Cereals/Breads/Tubercle and Meat/Eggs categories and underestimated the Milk/Dairy Products and Oils/Fat categories. Conclusion: The triathletes overestimated some macronutrients (carbohydrates and proteins) in detriment from another, like lipids.