Investigation of the Relationship Between Athletes' Anxiety About Catching Coronavirus (COVID-19) and Their Attitudes Towards Nutrition

Abstract

With the emergence of the Covid-19 pandemic in China, it has become an important public health problem globally, causing many organizations to be canceled, education and workplace restrictions, and curfews to be declared. It is thought that following the measures taken due to the virus, staying at home for a long time, restriction of social activities, changes in eating habits, in parallel, trigger many health problems. This study aims to determine the relationship between the anxiety of catching Covid-19 in athletes and their attitudes towards nutrition. A relational screening model was used in the research. The study group consists of 227 (83 female, 144 male) athletes studying in the field of sports sciences. To determine the demographic information of the athletes in the research, "Personal Information Form", "Scale of Athletes' Anxiety of catching New Type Coronavirus (Covid-19)" and "Attitude Scale towards Healthy Eating" were used. In the analysis of the data, distribution characteristics were determined and the suitability of parametric tests was reviewed, independent sample t-test, ANOVA test, Pearson correlation analysis, and simple linear regression analysis were used to determine the relationship between variables. It is seen that those who have sufficient knowledge about Covid-19 have higher average scores on knowledge about nutrition, positive nutrition, and nutrition than those who do not have sufficient knowledge. In comparisons according to body mass index, the average of low weight individuals in the individual anxiety sub-dimension was higher than normal weights; In malnutrition, it is seen that underweight people have more averages than high weights, and normal-weight people have more averages than high weight in the total nutritional score. It has been determined that there are negative significant relationships between the individual anxiety, socialization anxiety, and total anxiety of catching Covid-19 of the athletes and their attitudes towards nutrition detected.