Abstract
Over the past thirty years there has been an increasing emphasis on the food provision for athletes at the Olympic Games (OG). While patron evaluation of this service has been conducted previously, expert opinion has not been investigated. The aim of this study was to evaluate the food provision at the London 2012 OG from the perspectiveof dietitians attending the event. Participants (n = 15) were asked to rate on a scale of 1 'very poor' to 5 'very good' the dining hall menu, and provision of food and nutrition support for specific situations, cultures, and dietary regimens. While menu variety, freshness, temperature, and cultural and religious representation rated highly (overall mean: 7.6 /10), specific items (gluten free items, sports and snack bars, and meal replacement/high energy drinks) rated poorly. Low ratings were also received for provision of recovery items (M = 2.2, SD = 0.78), food for travelling to (M = 2.6, SD = 1.00) and at venues (M = 3.0, SD = 1.17), and ability to take snacks out of the dining hall (M = 2.6, SD = 0.95). While respondents supported nutrition labelling, the use of websites and applications for accessing information about the menu was suggested as a better service. The highlighted areas for improvement included catering for athlete recovery (dairy/ snack items, and food provided outside of the village), weight management (modifying recipes to low fat) and therapeutic needs (gluten free). These results are supported by studies on athletes' opinion of food provision at similar events and suggest that development of standards for food service review at the OG is warranted.