Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Journal Article
Journal Article
Jacob Calkins
Mrs. Brower
19 October 2018
The journal article, Performance Level Affects the Dietary Supplement Intake of Both
Individual and Team Sports Athletes, written by Ifigenia Giannopoulou, Kostantinos Noustos,
Nikolaos Apostolidis, Ioannis Bayios, and George P. Nassis, was published in March of 2013.
The main idea of the article is that dietary supplements, D.S. for short, affect the performance
differently in individual athletes compared to athletes on a team. The thesis presented in the
article is that dietary supplements are taken differently to increase performance level, in respect
to a team sport and individual athletes. Based on the authors’ data, they believe that individual
athletes are more likely to take dietary supplements. The authors of the journal article created an
accurate conclusion by effectively using data gathering techniques that are thorough and by
The journal article explained research that was conducted with people, athletes and
fill out about dietary supplements that they had used in the past month. This questionnaire was
given to 2,845 people, and it was the largest study done on dietary supplement intake to date.
The people they used came from all backgrounds, and the main difference between the two pools
of people was whether or not they were on a team sport or they were individual athletes. The
questionnaire was designed to diagnose what supplements the two pools took, and how often
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these supplements were taken. The supplements that were used most often were protein/amino
acids, creatine, and caffeine. In the conclusion of the article, the authors stated that performance
level was affected positively by D.S. intake, and D.S. intake was more common among
individual athletes.
The first way the article proves their conclusion was by gathering data that was relevant
to the study. They use a questionnaire with a design that was focused on gathering the data they
needed to come to their conclusion. The questionnaire was reviewed and supported by the
“health and sport nutrition professionals and researchers at the University of Athens”
(Giannopoulou et al). Since the questionnaire was approved by health professionals, their data
was more likely to be accepted as accurate. The other way that their data gathering techniques
helped them come to their conclusion was by using a large pool of subjects in their study. The
2,845 participants made it “the first comprehensive study on a large population sample of
(Giannopoulou et al). The reason this makes their conclusion more accepted and believable
would be that larger studies contain more data, so a conclusion based on more data would be
Another way that the article supports its conclusion was by using visual aids that are
appropriate to the topic. The authors used visual aids, such as bar graphs and charts, to explain
the data that they collected from the questionnaire. The authors do this in “Figure 1,” to show the
impact on training volume and prevalence of dietary supplement intake (Giannopoulou et al).
The ideas in “Figure 1,” were first explained in the text and then this data was simplified by
being put into a graph (Giannopoulou et al). The reason this would be helpful is that it allows the
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reader to see the same information in two different ways. This gives the article repetition which
helps the reader understand the information in the text. The article does this again in “Table 1,”
but in a different way (Giannopoulou et al). This table divides the information into an easy to
read and understand format; therefore, it allows the reader to thoroughly understand the difficult
text present in the article. The reason this helps is that not all readers, like athletes, will
completely understand the text, and by putting it in a table format, it allows for easier
comprehension.
Overall, the authors of the journal article do an excellent job of getting to a correct
conclusion by using data gathering techniques and by using visual aids. The article uses a large
sample of participants in the study, making the study one of a kind. The visual aids in the article
support the text in an easier to understand format. Overall, the ideas in the article make a
compelling argument that performance level would be enhanced by the use of dietary
supplements. Something to consider after reading this article would be how can dietary
Work Cited
Giannopoulou, Ifigenia, et al. “Performance Level Affects the Dietary Supplement Intake of
Both Individual
and Team Sports Athletes.” Journal of Sports Science & Medicine, vol. 12, no. 1, Mar.
2013, pp.
190–196. EBSCOhost,
search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=a9h&AN=91530292&site=ehost-live.