Assessment of Knowledge, Attitudes, and Practices on Healthy Dietary Practices among Sports Students

Adequate food is the most important requisite for growth; while it is important throughout the children, it is more crucial during the early years of life when rapid growth occurs. Thus, dietary intake, nutritional status, emotional maturity, and physical fitness are major determinants of physical performance. Objective: To assess the Knowledge, Attitude, and Practices of healthy dietary practices among sports students. Methods: A cross-sectional study was conducted among 100 sports students from the University of Lahore sports complex teams using a non-probability convenient sampling technique. Structured questionnaire surveys were personally given to them to collect the data related to their knowledge, attitude, and practices. Data were analyzed with the help of SPSS version 24.0. Results: According to our results, 75.2% of the participants had good knowledge about healthy dietary choices, 64.4% of them had a good attitude towards opting for the right meal, while the practices of the participants were relatively low as about 57.4% of them were practicing their knowledge. Conclusions: It was determined that the majority of the sports students had adequate healthy dietary knowledge and healthy eating attitude, but there were inadequate healthy dietary practices among sports students. Most of them had normal healthy BMI, including both gender, but there were inadequate nutritional practices among sports students. Most students were eating out, taking unhealthy snacks, carbonated beverages and caffeine. Moreover, the consumption of water among the students was also affected.


I N T R O D U C T I O N
Adequate food is the most important requisite for growth; while it is important throughout the children, it is more crucial during the early years of life when rapid growth occurs. Thus, dietary intake, nutritional status, emotional maturity, and physical tness are major determinants of physical performance. Objective: To assess the Knowledge, Attitude, and Practices of healthy dietary practices among sports students. Methods: A cross-sectional study was conducted among 100 sports students from the University of Lahore sports complex teams using a nonprobability convenient sampling technique. Structured questionnaire surveys were personally given to them to collect the data related to their knowledge, attitude, and practices. Data were analyzed with the help of SPSS version 24.0. Results: According to our results, 75.2% of the participants had good knowledge about healthy dietary choices, 64.4% of them had a good attitude towards opting for the right meal, while the practices of the participants were relatively low as about 57.4% of them were practicing their knowledge. Conclusions: It was determined that the majority of the sports students had adequate healthy dietary knowledge and healthy eating attitude, but there were inadequate healthy dietary practices among sports students. Most of them had normal healthy BMI, including both gender, but there were inadequate nutritional practices among sports students. Most students were eating out, taking unhealthy snacks, carbonated beverages and caffeine. Moreover, the consumption of water among the students was also affected.

A R T I C L E I N F O A B S T R A C T M E T H O D S
and micronutrients. In addition to the energy demands of exercise, proper eating habits will be carried over to maturity in adolescent athletes, and the risk of an incorrect lifestyle can be decreased in the presence of physical activity [7,8]. Nutrition in sports is regarded as a method of nutrition information to a regular food plan in order to provide energy for strength training, speed up the body's healing process, and maintain overall health status while competing in sports [9]. Because most sports have a high degree of competition, athletes are vulnerable to the latest diet or supplement trends and may be inclined to change their diet to boost their performance. Unhealthy eating habits severely impact not just their competition per formance but also their overall health [10]. Consumption of healthful meals is linked to nutrition knowledge. Those who are active, such as those concerned with physical wellbeing and competitive beginner or experienced athletes, are referred to as athletes [11]. Nonathletes are those who do not participate in sports and are more prone to have an unhealthy life, especially during the week. How well athletes perform in sporting events is in uenced by their nutrition expertise, eating choices, and food intake [12]. This study aims to assess the nutritional Knowledge, attitude, and practices among sports students. Healthy dietary practices, knowledge, and attitudes play an important role in the performance and physical tness. There is a need to create awareness, increase knowledge, and improve dietary practices among sports students.
A cross-sectional study was conducted among 100 sports students from the University of Lahore sports complex teams by the non-randomized convenient sampling technique. Structured questionnaire surveys were personally given to them to collect the data related to their knowledge, attitude and practices. Our main focus was on teenagers and adults of both genders aged from 15 to 30 years who participated in sports. Data were analyzed with the help of SPSS version 24.0.  According to gure 1, the majority of the participants (89%) had Normal BMI; 6% and 4% of the participants were

D I S C U S S I O N
Healthy eating plays a major role in the maintenance of a healthy body. A balanced diet provides the energy needed by the human body [13]. To regulate all the necessary functions in a body, one must eat a balanced diet consisting of a su cient amount of carbohydrates, proteins, fats, vitamins, and minerals. On top of that, one must stay physically active to make the body function faster and more e ciently. Carbohydrates provide the energy required by the body, proteins help in muscle building, and fats provide insulation to the skin and protection for the organs. The results obtained from this study were very positive as the majority of the participants had nutrition awareness.  was seen in other research [16] in which it was seen that only 50% of participants were nutritionally educated. According to the present study, 76% of participants knew the healthy alternatives to junk food; moreover, in another study [17], 70-79% of participants had nutrition education. These results are very similar to the present study's results.
Being aware of the healthy alternatives to unhealthy food allows a person to choose better options that help boost his performance. In the current study, it was seen that 78.9% of participants enjoyed healthy snacks; however, in another study of similar nature, it was seen that 80.3% of the participants had a healthy eating attitude, showing the likeness toward healthy snacks [18]. If a person enjoys healthy food, it becomes very easy to follow a healthy diet. This study showed that 72.9% of the participants have a cheat meal often, while an Indian study [19] showed that 70% of the participants had a good nutrition attitude, explaining the possible high intake of junk food. In the current study, 54.2% of the participants chose healthy snacks from their university cafeterias, while, in a Malaysian study, it was observed that 59.55% of the participants had a balanced diet, which clearly shows the choice of a healthy and balanced diet from university cafeterias. Choosing the right kind of snacks from university cafeterias can be very useful in order to keep calorie intake on track. In the practice section, most of our respondents (67%) had practiced maintaining a healthy food lifestyle, consistent with another study that had the same practice claims. However, another study shows that only 4.5% have good practice [17]. Therefore, having good knowledge does not always ensure excellent practice.
Being consistent with a healthy lifestyle is the key to a better performance in sports as well as in other daily activities. Better results can only be obtained if one is consistent and determined with a healthy lifestyle. In this study, it was found that 42% of participants took dietary guidelines from their trainers; likewise, in another study, 37% of the respondents took nutritional information from their coaches [20]. This research shows that not all athletes take dietary guidelines from authentic sources; some may be misguided towards making bad food choices.
In the present study, 67.7% of the students used the internet to nd nutritional information. This suggests that students gather nutritional information from any source they can in order to improve their eating habits and sports performances, irrespective of the fact that their source of information could be misguiding in many ways. 3.

No (%)
The Table 4 shows that 63% of members do not train with their stomach full. 45% of members drink lots of water during training. However, 66% of members often eat out, 36% take protein supplementation, whilst 64% do not take protein supplements for better performance. 59% of members burn calories gained from unhealthy eating, while 41% of members do not feel the need to burn excessive calories. About 68% of participants eat at odd times.
The Figure 2, displays that 87% say that their diet has an impact on their performance C O N C L U S I O N S both genders. But there were inadequate nutritional practices among sports students. The majority of the students were eating out, taking unhealthy snacks, carbonated beverages, and caffeine. Moreover, the consumption of water among the students was also affected.