Abstract
Good knowledge of nutrition is widely thought to be an important aspect to maintaining a balanced and healthy diet. The aim of this study was to develop and validate a new reliable tool to measure the general and the sport nutrition knowledge (GeSNK) in people who used to practice sports at different levels. The development of (GeSNK) was carried out in six phases as follows: (1) item development and selection by a panel of experts; (2) pilot study in order to assess item difficulty and item discrimination; (3) measurement of the internal consistency; (4) reliability assessment with a 2-week test-retest analysis; (5) concurrent validity was tested by administering the questionnaire along with other two similar tools; (6) construct validity by administering the questionnaire to three groups of young adults with different general nutrition and sport nutrition knowledge. The final questionnaire, consisted of 62 items of the original 183 questions. It is a consistent, valid, and suitable instrument that can be applied over time, making it a promising tool to look at the relationship between nutrition knowledge, demographic characteristics, and dietary behavior in adolescents and young adults.
Highlights
Adolescence is a period of rapid growth and changes; good food habits and adequate nutrient intake are crucial to ensuring optimal development during this life stage
From an extensive literature research, we found two questionnaires tested on Italian subjects that were suitable for comparison, namely the questionnaire proposed by Moynihan et al [23], which assessed general nutrition knowledge, and the questionnaire proposed by Cupisti et al [24], which assessed nutrition knowledge in athletes
The present study aimed to develop a new questionnaire exploring general nutrition and sports nutrition knowledge using a mixed sample of adolescents and young adults doing sports at different levels
Summary
Adolescence is a period of rapid growth and changes; good food habits and adequate nutrient intake are crucial to ensuring optimal development during this life stage. Many fields of society such as schools, families, sports coaches, and the mass media play a critical role in influencing the dietary behaviors of adolescents and young adults. A well planned nutrition program is important to obtain and maintain good athletic performance [1]. Recreational and competitive young athletes frequently have suboptimal or unbalanced dietary intakes, despite having their attention turned to physical fitness [2]. Adolescent athletes have no knowledge or perception whatsoever of their nutrition status, so the use of supplements is not driven by an awareness of insufficiency, but instead a desire for performance enhancement [6]
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