Nutrition knowledge and dietary habits of athletes

Introduction The nutrition of athletes has been of interest to scientists for decades and since the origins of sports competitions the questions about what to eat and what to drink in order to improve performance have been raised. Today there are scientific proofs that an adequate dietary habits influences in a large extent to an athlete's health, body composition, and energetic pathways during the activity as well as during the competition or recovery. Athletes should be well informed about the food groups, caloric intake, and daily meal schedule. The aim of this study was to evaluate nutrition knowledge and dietary habits of athletes and to estimate inter- relationship between them such as the differences between male and female. The source of nutrition information and food supplements related behaviours were also taken into consideration. Methods Respondents of this study were active and succesful athletes (n=100) both genders. Methods used in this study were for this occasion specially designed questionnaire for nutrition knowledge determination, and dietary assessment method through qualitative food frequency questionnaire (FFQ). Reasults and discussion Results showed middle knowledge level of nutrition which statistically wasn't significantly affected by the frequency of asking for nutrition information and qualification level of the nutrition information source. Respectively high number of respondents were estimated for irregular meal consumption, especially snack meals and they in average don't satisfy the recommendations for optimal hydration. The knowledge level of nutriton doesn't significantly influence on the quality of dietary habits among respondent athletes. Estimated knowledge level of nutrition and dieatary habits don't differ between genders. Still, statistically significant positive correlation between knowledge level of nutrition and quality of dietary habits is estimated among male althletes and all questioned athletes but not between female athletes. The recommendations are to improve conscionsness about the importance of well balanced diet for athletes, and to educate them as well as their coaches.