Examination of Nutritional Knowledge Levels and Nutritional Attitudes of Badminton Athletes

Abstract

Aim: This study aimed to examine the nutritional knowledge levels and nutritional attitudes of badminton athletes in Turkey. Method: The screening model was used in our research. After giving preliminary information about the survey to the participants, a total of 207 volunteer athletes (92 (44.4%) female and 115 (55.6%) male athletes) participated in the study voluntarily. In the research, a personal information form was used in the first part, and a nutrition questionnaire consisting of two main parts was applied in the nutrition-related part. The first part of the nutrition questionnaire measured the nutritional knowledge level of the participants, and the second part measured their nutritional attitudes. The data obtained for the research were first transferred to the computer environment and then analyzed through the SPSS 22.0 package program. Results: According to the results of the study, it was observed that the nutritional attitude values of the female participants were higher than the males, and this difference was found to be statistically significant (p<0.05). Considering the nutritional attitudes of the national athletes according to the being national athlete status variable of the participants, it was determined that the mean scores were higher than the non-national athletes and this situation was statistically significant (p<0.05). Conclusion: When the results were examined, it was observed that the athletes who took nutrition lessons had higher nutritional knowledge and attitudes than those who did not, and national athletes had higher nutritional knowledge and attitudes than non-national athletes. The fact that national athletes can be in the camp environment at an early age and work with experts was inevitably beneficial for their nutritional knowledge and attitude.