EATING HABIT AND NUTRITIONAL KNOWLEDGE OF FITNESS PROGRAM PARTICIPANTS ON WEIGHT MANAGEMENT IN THE CASE OF SELECTED FITNESS CENTERS, DIRE –DAWA, ETHIOPIA

Abstract

he purpose of the study was to assess eating habit and nutritional knowledge of fitness program participants on weight managements in the case of selected Dire-Dawa fitness center practitioners. One hundred thirty (130) Dire-Dawa fitness center practitioners were included male and females. The number of male practitioners was highly dominating in the fitness center. As the matter of fact, the investigator realized that the number of the practitioner in each fitness center was dominated by male. That was why the ratio of male practitioner to female practitioner was 10:3. This meant 77% of the practitioners were male while the left23% was female. As source of information for the study. Data were collected from primary sources. The method of data collection employed included questionnaires and interviews. The data obtained through these tools were analyzed both qualitatively and quantitatively. Quantitatively analysis data is made using tables of descriptive percentage and frequency and interpret through percent value and qualitatively using words. The findings revealed that most of the participants were participating in fitness center to create healthy life style while the left were participating for body weight controlling purposively and there was knowledge gap among the practitioners the investigator could identified the reasons for participating in the fitness center. These different purposes aimed for the fitness activities participation were increasing, decreasing or maintaining at where it was, strengths endurance and flexibility. About 68.5% they did not often eat balanced diet. While the left 31.5% of the practitioners knew more about balanced diet. The result was elaborated with more description showed that the finding of this research revealed that only about 8.5% of the practitioners had exactly healthy eating habit and good nutritional knowledge. Finally the result of these findings was concluded as the unhealthy eating habits and lack of nutritional knowledge was affecting the weight management of fitness centers practitioners, in Dire Dawa.