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Abstract

Athletes, who have sufficient knowledge on the importance of nutrition, attitudes and di-etary habits, are believed to have better performance. The purpose of the current study is to determine the level of nutrition knowledge related to sports, to determine the nutrition infor-mation sources, and to explore the use of ergogenic supplementation among the study sam-ple. In this descriptive study, athletes were required to fill out pretested questionnaire, which consisted of four parts including; socio-demographic and medical history, nutrition status as-sessment which included anthropometric measurements, dietary practices, ergogenic supple-mentation use, and developed nutrition knowledge questionnaire. The statistical analysis was done using descriptive analysis, Cronbach Alpha was used to determine the reliability of questionnaire. Independent t-test and ANOVA were done to determine the differences be-tween the selected variables. A total of 170 Palestinian athletes are involved in the final anal-ysis study. The sample consists of males only. The mean of the nutrition knowledge score is (8.91 ± 2.5) out of 21. It is observed that employment status and monthly income has an in-fluence on nutrition knowledge score among athletes. Overall, 59.3% of participated athletes use ergogenic supplements; mostly energy drinks (28.8%) while anabolic steroid is the least type of supplements used by the athletes. The majority of the athletes rely on coaches and internet as a primary source for their information. The nutrition knowledge score seems to be insufficient among participated athletes. The gaps in nutrition knowledge are evident. A better comprehension of nutrition knowledge among athletes, especially the gaps in knowledge will let nutrition education interventions to emphasize specific areas, which in turn, require more awareness and improvement.

Digital Object Identifier (DOI)

10.59049/2790-0231.1077

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