NUTRITIONAL KNOWLEDGE AND PRACTICES OF ATHLETES AND COACHES AMONG U-17 SPORT PROJECT, IN SHAMBU TOWN HORO GUDURU WELEGA ZONE, OROMIA REGIONAL STATE, ETHIOPIA

Abstract

In our country many adolescent athletes’ choice foods based on their family socio economic status and on their feeling without any nutritional knowledge or nutritional advice. The aim of this study was to assess overall health aspects such as, physical fitness, mental health and balance diet relevant topics of nutrition knowledge, such as knowledge of macronutrients, micronutrients and hydration of adolescent (U-17) sport project trainee athletes and their coaches. Therefore, the total populations of this study are 100athletes and 4their coaches. Out of these population 20 female and 20 male athletes (5 male and 5 female athletes from each training center) and 4 coaches generally U-17 project trainee 40athletes and 4 their coaches ‘subjects was select as a sample. Stratified simple random sampling method was used to select the subjects from the population. Primary source of data were used for this study. The investigator collected the data through instruments like interview, questionnaire and observation. The information obtained or collected from questionnaire,interview andobservation was analyzed using frequency and percentage by using statistical package for social science (SPSS version 20) then finally, based on the findings conclusion and recommendation were proposed as a research output. The findings of this study was the majority of lack of nutritional knowledge on the types of food and nutrition affects performance of an athletes replied harmony and minority of the respondents were replied undecided and disagree.