ACTA FAC MED NAISS 2013;30(4):201-208

Original article

UDC: 613.2:[61-057.875:796

DOI: 10.2478/afmnai-2013-0012

Nutritional Knowledge and Behavior Among Students Practicing Sports:

Comparison Between Two Countries

Gabriele Trabucco¹, Maja Nikoić², Bojana Vuković Mirković²

¹University of Turin, Faculty of Medicine and Surgery, Italy

²University of Niš, Faculty of Medicine, Serbia


summary

Nutrition plays a very important role in every physical fitness program. Despite many advances in nutritional knowledge and dietary practices, sports nutrition-associated issues are still a challenge. The aim of this study was to determine and compare nutritional knowledge and behavior among the youth practicing sports situated in two different European countries. Young athletes (n=84), aged 18-40 years from two different schools of medicine, situated in Turin (Italy) and Niš (Serbia), were included in the study. The participants completed two-part questionnaire about nutritional knowledge and behavior. The collected data was coded and used for evaluation. The results revealed that the overall nutritional knowledge score of the Italian students (49% of all examinees) practicing sports was 66.7% compared to the Serbian students who also had good nutritional knowledge - 63%. The average number of meals was four per day, with lunch as the most frequent meal and about 30% of all examinees ate out “more than four times a week”. There was a statistically significant difference between the groups concerning the sources from which the students obtained nutritional information: 26% of the Italian students obtained nutrition-related information from parents and 21% of them from their trainers. The main sources of obtaining nutrition information among Serbian participants were internet (29%) and school (24%). Besides a positive attitude towards nutrition, good nutritional knowledge was observed in students practicing sports in Italy and Serbia.

Key words: nutrition, knowledge, students, sport