Integrating sustainability in athletes’ dietary choices

The food industry is one of the sectors with the greatest impact on climate change. A healthier and more sustainable EU food system is a cornerstone of the EU’s Green Deal with its Farm to Fork strategy in order to achieve climate neutrality by 2050. A shift in the way of producing, buying and consuming food is necessary to improve the environmental footprint and help mitigate climate change. There are various barriers for consumers in general and athletes in particular to change their diets into more sustainable ones. While it is important that athletes meet dietary guidelines to maintain health and improve performance capacity, studies show that athletes exceed (animal) protein intakes and use a large number of dietary supplements. Furthermore, at the moment very few sports nutrition recommendations and guidelines include sustainable eating. Therefore, the consortium wanted to address the need of integrating sustainability in athletes’ diets while also including coaches and other sports and nutrition professionals in this process. In addition, athletes are role models for society and can act as strong voices for planetary health.

In order to contribute to the target of the F2F strategy of promoting sustainable food consumption and facilitating the shift to healthy, sustainable diets, the project aimed to support the integration of sustainability in sport nutrition in Germany, Greece, Malta, Portugal, Spain and Türkiye by: - Enhancing the knowledge of professional and non-professional athletes and other sports professionals (coaches, trainers, fitness instructors etc.) on sustainable food choices and their effect on the athletes health and sports performance and on the environment, so that they not only change their dietary habits, but become role models and agents of change - Increasing awareness among athletes, sports professionals and organizations on athletes’ dietary choices carbon footprint - Enhancing access to dietary guidelines and flexible educational tools for professional and non-professional athletes that are aligned with sustainability principles - Enhancing the knowledge and skills of sports nutrition professionals on the impact diets have on the environment and how they can assist athletes to shift to more sustainable diets.

1. Elaboration of Guidelines on Sustainable Diets for Athletes 1.1 Desk and field research on sustainable diets 1.2 Development of Guidelines on sustainable diets for athletes 2. Development of Online Training & Awareness Raising Programme for sports nutritionists, professional and non-professional athletes and other sports professionals 2.1 Development of Training & Awareness Raising Programme modules 2.2 Piloting the online Programme 3. Development of Digital Nutrition Education Tool 3.1 Development of Digital Nutrition Education Tool 3.2 Piloting the Digital Nutrition Education Tool 4. Elaboration of Policy Recommendations for integration of sustainability into National Dietary Guidelines and development of dietary guidelines for athletes 4.1 Elaboration of policy recommendations 4.2 Publication of policy recommendations booklet

The main Results of the project were: 1. Guidelines on sustainable diets for athletes addressed to nutrition professionals, professional and non-professional athletes and other sports professionals developed; 2. Online Training & Awareness Raising Programme on sustainable diets for professional and non-professional athletes and other sports professionals, and sport nutrition professionals developed; 3. Digital Nutrition Education Tool for professional and non-professional athletes and other sports professionals, and sport nutrition professionals developed; 4. Policy Recommendations booklet for public authorities and relevant stakeholders supporting the integration of sustainability into National Dietary Guidelines (for those countries that do not), and especially the development of sustainable dietary guidelines specifically for athletes developed and promoted. Furthermore, the project achieved the following outcomes: - At least 276 professional and non-professional athletes with developed awareness and knowledge on sustainable food choices and their effect on health & sports performance, so that they start changing their dietary habits, and becoming role models & agents of change (through online training and/or the Nutrition Education Tool); - At least 110 sport nutritionists with enhanced knowledge and skills on the environmental impact of diets and how they can assist and guide professional and non-professional athletes in integrating sustainable food choices into their daily training diets via personalized nutrition (through online training and/or the Nutrition Education Tool); - At least 95 other sports professionals (coaches, trainers, fitness instructors, gym owners etc.) with developed awareness and knowledge on sustainable food choices and their effect on health & sports performance, so that they are able to support professional and non-professionals athletes to make the shift to more sustainable diets (through online training and/or the Nutrition Education Tool. In the evaluation surveys on PR2 and PR3 there was an additional large number of participants choosing the category “other” as their profession, while describing their profession as yoga teacher, fitness instructor etc., which would include them in this category of sports professionals.); - At least 10 health, nutrition, sport public authorities and stakeholders with developed knowledge and awareness on the importance and ways of incorporating sustainability into National Dietary Guidelines, and the development of (sustainable) dietary guidelines specifically for athletes; - Increased awareness among athletes, nutrition and sports professionals and organizations, students in the fields of nutrition and sports as well as the wider public on athletes’ diets carbon footprint and sustainable food (over 1.000 reached through dissemination activities and tools, and the Nutrition Education Tool); - Enhanced access of professional & non-professional athletes to sustainable dietary guidelines and educational tools; - Enhanced knowledge and tools of the project partner organizations that enable them to support and extend their activities and/or services in the fields of sports/fitness, training, sustainable development, environmental protection, climate change mitigation, promotion of healthy, sustainable lifestyles etc.