Abstract
This study was designed to pilot a survey to investigate nutrition knowledge, attitudes, and beliefs toward nutrition, exercise, and dietary habits of active adolescents. Participants included 117 middle school and 40 high school students. General and sport nutrition knowledge, dietary habits, and attitudes toward nutrition education were collected via three electronic surveys. Among middle schoolers, 79.5% of students stated feeling they could benefit from advice about nutrition compared to 92.5% of high school students. The topic scoring the highest in both populations was hydration; the lowest scoring topic category was protein and exercise. Knowledge about healthy eating reportedly comes from parents and coaches most frequently for both high school and middle school students. Less than 40% of students stated their diet meets their nutritional needs. Both middle school and high school students stated a desire to learn more about nutrition, but most nutrition information currently received comes from non-nutrition-related professionals. There is a need for validation of a nutrition knowledge and behavior instrument for United States adolescents, and room for improvement in general and sport nutrition knowledge in active adolescents in all topic areas.
Highlights
There is a growing interest in sports nutrition in collegiate athletes as a method of improving performance at a high level of competition
Further research is needed on nutrition intervention in students participating in sport. Both active middle school and high school students stated a desire to learn more about nutrition, but most of the nutrition information currently received comes from non-nutrition related professionals
Since active students are currently getting their nutrition information from parents and coaches first, further research is needed on the education of students and the education of parents and coaches to relay reliable nutrition information to students
Summary
There is a growing interest in sports nutrition in collegiate athletes as a method of improving performance at a high level of competition. What if nutrition education were introduced at an earlier age and performance enhancing dietary habits began before the athletes started competing at the collegiate level? Multiple studies have acknowledged the lack of nutrition knowledge in adolescents [1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9], but few studies have taken the step in determining how to best educate adolescents on nutrition-related topics. Many adolescent athletes believe that diet is important for sport performance while reporting their diet does not currently meet recommended nutritional requirements for sport [5,8]. Even if an athlete believes that nutrition is important for exercise, it might not translate into dietary habits. One study found that male high school athletes are more likely to meet nutrition recommendations than female high school athletes despite scoring lower on nutrition knowledge
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