Retrospective analysis of the Special Olympics Health Promotion database for nutrition-specific variables

Studies have shown that individuals with intellectual disabilities (ID) exhibit a high prevalence of obesity and poor-quality diet. The population of individuals with ID include athletes that participate in Special Olympics.

In order to develop appropriate educational programs for the Special Olympics Athletes in Connecticut, a baseline of the various health and nutrition variables needed to be established by examining the existing data in the Special Olympics International's Health Promotion database.

A retrospective analysis was performed using data from the Special Olympics International (SOI) Health Promotion database. The study population included athletes at least 20 years of age (n = 47,932) and divided into sub-groups of non-USA, USA and Connecticut (CT). The data was provided by SOI to the research team in a de-identified form covering the time frame of 2014-2019. The existing data was originally collected by trained SO volunteers and included age, height, weight, bone mineral density (BMD), blood pressure (BP) variables and a health habits questionnaire. In addition to basic descriptive statistics, analysis was performed using Chi Squared Analysis and ANOVA with post-hoc. A significance level of p value ≤ 0.05 was used for all analyses.

Results show a high prevalence of obesity, high blood pressure, low bone mineral density and a poor-quality diet across all groups. CT athletes were older and had a more even distribution by gender compared to the non-USA and USA groups. CT athletes had a high prevalence of obesity, HTN, and low BMD, as well as, a poor quality diet reflected by high frequency of consumption of sweetened beverages, fast food and snack food. CT athletes also did not consume the recommended daily servings of calcium containing foods or fruits and vegetables.

This data will be used to develop educational programs that will help to improve the overall health of Special Olympics Athletes in Connecticut.