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199812 https://hdl.handle.net/2286/R.2.N.199812 http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/ All Rights Reserved 2025 2026-12-01T17:33:10 181 pages Masters Thesis Academic theses en Armstrong, Emma B Wardenaar, Floris Wharton, Christopher Levinson, Simin Arizona State University Partial requirement for: M.S., Arizona State University, 2025 Field of study: Nutrition Supplement use is common among collegiate athletes, which comes with doping risk. This cross-sectional study aimed to explore differences between male and female use, compliance, knowledge, and/or attitudes toward third-party tested (TPT) supplements. Student-athletes, coming from eight PAC-12 athletic departments (n=725, 49.9% female, 50.1% male, age 20.0+/-1.55), were surveyed addressing demographics, nutrition information sources, supplement knowledge, supplement use, attitudes and barriers toward supplement use, including scales based on the theory of planned behavior (TPB), and third-party tested supplement recognition. Data were reported for the total group and stratified for sex. Sex differences were analyzed using Chi-square tests, with p set for significance at ≤0.05. On average, participants used 8 supplements within the past year. Female athletes reported an average of 7.41 and male athletes reported using an average of 7.34. Overall, 64.6% (n=468) of athletes reported inconsistent TPT. When split for sex, more female athletes (71.0%, n=257) compared to male athletes (58.1%, n=211) self-reported inconsistent use of third-party tested supplements (p=0.001). Results for supplement use were stratified into three categories: low users (0-3 supplements, ≤25th percentile), average users (4-11 supplements, between 25-50th percentile), and high users (11-30 supplements, >75th percentile). Male student athletes reported a higher frequency of supplement use in the low user category (30.3%, n=110) as compared to females. Female student athletes reported higher supplement use in the average user category (53.3%, n=193). The lowest total frequency across both sexes (26.2%, n=190) was the high user category. Sports drink was the most frequently reported nutritional supplement used within the total sample (60.8%, n=441), but more so in females (65.5%, n=237) than males (56.2%, n=204) (p=0.011). A large amount of the sample recognized at least one TPT logo 74.8% (n=542), but a lower number of females (69.3%, n=251) than males (80.2%, n=291) recognized one logo (p<0.001). In conclusion, this study did not observe a difference in M/F overall supplement use, but when categorizing for low/medium/high number of supplements used males report more extreme on both ends than females. A higher frequency of female athletes reported inconsistent compliance with TPT supplements. More male than female athletes recognized a TPT logo. Nutrition Collegiate Athletes Sports Supplementation Supplementation Differences between Male and Female College Athletes