Nutrition knowledge and practices among Palestinian athletes

Abstract

Athletes, who have sufficient knowledge on the importance of nutrition, attitudes and di-etary habits, are believed to have better performance. The purpose of the current study is to determine the level of nutrition knowledge related to sports, to determine the nutrition infor-mation sources, and to explore the use of ergogenic supplementation among the study sam-ple. In this descriptive study, athletes were required to fill out pretested questionnaire, which consisted of four parts including; socio-demographic and medical history, nutrition status as-sessment which included anthropometric measurements, dietary practices, ergogenic supple-mentation use, and developed nutrition knowledge questionnaire. The statistical analysis was done using descriptive analysis, Cronbach Alpha was used to determine the reliability of questionnaire. Independent t-test and ANOVA were done to determine the differences be-tween the selected variables. A total of 170 Palestinian athletes are involved in the final anal-ysis study. The sample consists of males only. The mean of the nutrition knowledge score is (8.91 ± 2.5) out of 21. It is observed that employment status and monthly income has an in-fluence on nutrition knowledge score among athletes. Overall, 59.3% of participated athletes use ergogenic supplements; mostly energy drinks (28.8%) while anabolic steroid is the least type of supplements used by the athletes. The majority of the athletes rely on coaches and internet as a primary source for their information. The nutrition knowledge score seems to be insufficient among participated athletes. The gaps in nutrition knowledge are evident. A better comprehension of nutrition knowledge among athletes, especially the gaps in knowledge will let nutrition education interventions to emphasize specific areas, which in turn, require more awareness and improvement.