ASSESSMENT OF THE NUTRITION

KNOWLEDGE, ATTITUDES, AND SOURCES

OF NUTRITION INFORMATION OF THE
BALL STATE UNIVERSITY SWIM TEAM

JD MIDDLETON
Research Proposal
December 2017
 INTRODUCTION
• Athletes have different nutritional needs from average non-athletes in
order to be at top performance (Pandey & Singh, 2013)
• Board Certified Specialists in Sports Dietetics (CSSD) are the most
reliable sources of nutrition information for athletes (SCAN, 2015)
• Most collegiate athletes lack the reliable sources to acquire the
nutritional knowledge they need (McGehee et al, 2012)
 PROBLEM
• Ball State lacks a full time sports dietitian for the athletes
• Lack of athlete and coaching staff nutrition education
• Athletes using faulty or non-evidence-based nutritional sources of
information
 PURPOSE
• The purpose of this study is to identify the sport nutrition knowledge,
sources of sport nutrition information, and attitudes toward the role of
nutrition on performance of the Ball State University swim team.
 RESEARCH QUESTIONS
• What is the overall sport-nutrition knowledge of the BSU swim team?
• What sources of sport-nutrition information are used by the BSU swim
team?
• What are the attitudes of the BSU swim team toward the role of
nutrition and their individual performance?
 RESEARCH QUESTIONS
• Is there a difference in attitudes between the role of nutrition and
performance based on:
• Gender
• Academic standing
• Number of years competing in swimming
• Event specialty
 ASSUMPTIONS
• The nutrition survey given to the athletes accurately tested their
knowledge
• The questions asked accurately assessed the athletes to give us the
necessary information on this topic
• The athletes truthfully answered the questions
LITERATURE REVIEW
 ATHLETE ENERGY NEEDS
• Athletes have increased nutritional needs from non-athletes
• Training alone can increase caloric needs by 5-40% depending on
endurance vs. resistance/strength (Pandey & Singh, 2013)
• USDA underestimates the athlete’s macronutrient needs to prevent
negative energy balance (Thomas et al, 2017)
• Timing of nutrient intake is important to ensure the best recovery
possible after training or competition (Heany, 2008)
 CSSD
• Board Certified Specialist in Sports Dietetics
• “Experienced registered dietitian who applies evidence-based nutrition
knowledge in exercise and sport” (SCAN, 2015)
• Gives athletes nutrition advice and education
 ATHLETE NUTRITION KNOWLEDGE
• 90% of student-athletes have inadequate knowledge of nutrition
(Andrews et al, 2016)
• Athletes have inadequate knowledge of:
• Recovery and nutrient timing
• Hydration
• Basic Nutrition
• Overall sports nutrition (Shapiro et al, 2015)
 ATHLETE NUTRITION SOURCES
• Most common sources for nutrition information for the athlete:
• Coaching staff
• Internet
• Athletic trainers (Abbey et al, 2017)
• Sources athletes think they should be using:
• Strength and Conditioning coaches
• Athletic trainers
• Registered dietitian (McGehee et al, 2012)
 EFFECTS OF NUTRITION EDUCATION
• Improved sports performance (Cholewa et al, 2015)
• Improved nutrition knowledge (Silva et al, 2016)
• Improved eating habits (Valliant et al, 2012)
• Athletes with a sports dietitian at their university are more likely to:
• Prepare their own meals
• Take daily vitamins
• Eat less fast food
• Eat before and after training sessions (Hull et al, 2017)
METHODS
 METHODOLOGY
• Research design
• Mixed methods study
• Data collection
• Quantitative and qualitative study
• Electronically administered
• 1 week
 SUBJECTS
• Population
• 45 members of the Ball State University swim team competing during the
2017-2018 season
• 22 males and 23 females from various class rankings (freshmen-senior)
• Ages range from 18-23 years old
 INSTRUMENT
• Electronically administered athlete nutrition survey
• 20 nutrition questions
• 10 multiple choice questions
• 10 True/False questions
• Likert scale questions
• Nutrition attitudes
• Nutrition information sources
 INSTRUMENT
• All constructs were weighted equally during scoring
• A 3-point Likert scale (1=occasionally, 2=sometimes, 3=always) was
used to assess the use of various nutrition information sources of the
athletes
• A 4-point Likert scale (1=agree, 2=somewhat agree, 3=somewhat
disagree, 4=disagree) was used to assess the nutrition attitudes of the
athletes
 VALIDITY AND RELIABILITY
• Face and content validity established by group of experts
• 3 registered dietitians
• 3 sports dietitians
• All faculty members in the department of Nutrition and Health
Science at Ball State University
• Survey was validated previously with the Spearman rho correlation
0.87, meeting requirements of 0.80 or higher
 PROCEDURE
• Men’s and Women’s swim teams took survey after their practices on
the first Monday of December 2016
• Survey took place on the athlete’s personal computer in the Lewellen
Pool classroom on Bal State’s campus
• Survey links emailed to the student-athletes on the day of the
assessment
 DATA ANALYSIS
• Quantitative data analyzed using SPSS v.23 for Windows (SPSS,
2016)
• Descriptive statistics and frequency counts will be run on all variables
• Nutrition questions will be scored right or wrong and summed to
create a total sport nutrition knowledge score
• Athlete considered to have adequate nutrition knowledge with an overall
nutrition question score of 75%
 DATA ANALYSIS
• One-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) used to compare scores of
overall nutrition knowledge by gender, class standing, years
competing in swimming, and stroke specialty
• Tukey post hoc used to calculate mean differences among these groups
• Statistical significance set at p < 0.05
QUESTIONS?