ENERGY-BALANCE IN HIGHLY TRAINED FEMALE ENDURANCE RUNNERS

Anecdotal and scientific reports have suggested that some female endur ance athletes may have an inexplicable imbalance between energy intake and energy expenditure. We compared energy intake (EI) from food diar ies (FD) with assessment of free-living energy expenditure (EE) using doubly labeled water (DLW) and a food attitude survey for 7 d in nine female distance runners. Daily EE via DLW (2990 +/- 415 kcal) was grea ter (P < 0.01) than daily EI via FD (2037 +/- 298 kcal): a 32% imbalan ce. Body weight did not change during the 7 d (day 1, 55.3 +/- 6.2 kg; day 7, 55.1 +/- 5.6 kg). A positive relationship was observed between EE and body weight (r = 0.82) while a negative correlation existed be tween EE vs EI (r = -0.83) and between EI vs body weight (r = -0.74). A negative correlation was observed between body weight and food attit ude/body image (r = -78), i.e., the heavier women self-reported lower EI and also reported lower body image scores. These female athletes ha d a significant imbalance between EI and EE by our measures. Since bod y image and EI were related to body weight, the estimates of EI may be low due to underreporting particularly by the heavier athletes.