Examining the nutritional habits and knowledge levels of basketball players aged 14-18

This study is a descriptive study in the survey model, one of the quantitative research methods, in order to search the nutritional habits and knowledge levels of basketball players between the ages of 14-18 and to determine whether there is a difference between them according to variables such as age and gender. Totally 252 basketball players, 62 women and 190 men, who play basketball in sports clubs in Fatih district of Istanbul province participated in this research. Previous thesis were used in order to determine the level of nutritional knowledge of basketball players. These thesis are; Merve Yuksek's "Examination of Nutritional Habits and Knowledge Levels of Amateur and Professional National Football Players" thesis, Gökhan Kayatürk's "Examination of the Nutrition Habits and Knowledge of Advanced and Lower Level Aikidoka in the Adult Group" thesis and Kemal Güral's "Examination of the Nutrition Habits and Knowledge Levels of Football Players Playing in Different Leagues" thesis. Accordingly, a 34-question survey developed by the researcher. This survey consist of 10 personal information, 14 nutritional habits and 10 nutritional information questions and it was applied to the athletes with the "e" survey method due to the covid-19 outbreak. IBM SPSS programme was used for statistical calculations. The frequency (f) and percentage (%) values of the obtained data were calculated and each question in the survey was rated individually. Crosstabs analysis was made according to the gender and age variables of the participants, and the Chi-Square test was applied to find the differences between them. If the p value is less than 0.05, the difference between groups is considered significant. As a result, nutritional habits and knowledge levels of basketball players between the ages of 14-18 were found insufficient. Accordingly, it is thought that to support and increase the nutritional information of athletes and trainers through practices like trainings, seminars or courses, to work with dietitians who are experts in sport's nutrition, to emphasize the importance of this issue continuously by written and visual media will be useful.