Determination of nutrition knowledge of adolescents engaged in sports

Abstract

This study was carried out to determine the nutritional knowledge of adolescents engaged in sports at the high school level in the central schools in Şanlıurfa. Sample of study was 495 students randomly selected who are engaged in sports in 4 high schools in Şanlıurfa. Verbal consent of the participants and institution permit were taken for the study. Nutrition Knowledge Scale for Adolescents (NKSA) was used for data collection and Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS) 23 package was used for data analysis. Descriptive statistics, independent samples t-test, one-way analysis of variance, Turkey Honest Significant Difference (HSD) test and Games-Howell test were used to evaluate the data. In the analysis, Type I error margin was accepted as 0.05.No significant difference was found in the average scores of nutrition knowledge levels in gender, age, sport type-duration, number of family members, body mass index (BMI) (p> 0.05). A significant difference was found when the school type and income level variables of the participants were examined (p <0.001). It was found that approximately 65% of the students have low level of nutritional knowledge. As a result, it was determined that the majority of the participants in our study had low nutritional knowledge and that income levels and school type affect the level of knowledge. In this respect, it is thought that seminars, which will be organized in cooperation with gym teachers aiming to increase the nutritional knowledge of young people in schools and clubs will be beneficial. © 2019 by authors, all rights reserved.