Abstract:
In Ethiopia many adolescent athletes’ choice foods based on their family socio economic
status and on their feeling without any nutritional knowledge or nutritional advice. This
study was therefore designed to assess the effect of 8 weeks nutrition education program
on knowledge of sport nutrition, selected dietary intake and body composition among
junior international taekwondo athletes in Western Guji Zone Bule Hora Town, Oromia
Regional State. Nutrition knowledge, dietary intake and body composition were measured
before and after an eight weeks nutrition education program. In this study the researcher
used single group research design. The Stratified simple random sampling method was
employed to select the samples from the population. The subjects of this study were 30
junior international taekwondo athletes aged 16-19 years old, of this 15 were males and
the rest 15 were females. In order to collect the adequate and reliable data the researcher
used questioners (Closed-ended) and body composition measurement. The data has been
analyzed using SPSS version 20. As a result of the nutrition education program, nutrition
knowledge of the athletes improved from 2.32 to 2.95 of mean score (p=0.011), fruit and
vegetable intake improved from 2.26 to 3.34 of mean score (p=0.0001), fluid intake was
improved from 1.83 to 2.83 of mean score (p=0.001), and athletes body composition was
improved from 19.95 to 20.04 of mean score (p=0.369). The present study suggests that a
nutrition education program can improve knowledge of sport nutrition, dietary intake and
body composition among junior international taekwondo athletes. Therefore, Nutrition
Education should have to be incorporated into training activities of international
taekwondo athletes
