Who and whyusedietary supplements?

Abstract

Introduction: Dietary supplements are added to diets products, containing at least one of ingredients: vitamins, minerals, amino acids, proteins, antioxidants, carbohydrates, lipids, fatty acids, or a combination of any of these. They are marketed under various purposes, such as improving someaspect of physical performance, mainly to increase muscle mass, reduce body fat, increase aerobic capacity, stimulate recovery and / or promote some feature that improves sports performance. Evaluate the characteristics of users of dietary supplements. We conducted a cross-sectional study with 102 customers and stores or pharmacies in São Paulo, the researcher and two trained promoters administered the questionnaire through interview technique. We included clients who reported using some type of nutritional supplementation after signing the consent form. Data were organized into spreadsheets Microsoft Office Excel 2007 and presented by means of figures and tables: Most users are male (57.04%), have higher education (54.06%), spend around R $ 50.00 to $ 100.00 monthly with supplements (51%), using 1-2 different types of supplements for different purposes (44%), do not bother to read the labeling information (66%), coach of 3 to 5 times a week (73.53%) of 1 or 2 hours per day (65.69%), starting between 1 and6 months (54.90%). Users are mostly people with higher education, who practice physical activity at gyms, use more than one type of supplement and without the specialized professional.