The examination of dietary habits of children who attend to summer sports schools in Bilecik

The aim of this research is to examine dietary habits of our children who attend to summer sports schools, to determine whether their knowledge on nutrition is sufficient or not, to establish the necessity of providing education on nutrition to both children and their parents and the importance of parents and trainers about getting into the habit of correct nutrition. The target population of the research contains 1500 students aged between 10-16 male and female prospective student athletes in various branch of sports in Bilecik Provincial Directorate of Youth and Sports, in 2015. The research sample contains 325 female and male volunteer students aged 10-16 who were selected randomly on the basis of volunteerism. In this research, "Examination of Dietary Habits" survey developed by Volkan ŞİRİNOĞLU in 2008 has been applied as data collection tool. The survey consists of 47 questions (98). The surveys have been conducted to volunteers in order to find answer the research questions and they have been computerized via SPSS 17.0. Demographic information and nutritional status of volunteers have been determined by percentage and frequency distributions. Graphical displays are drawn by means of Excel program. As a result of our study, it has been established that students have gained dietary habits and information on nutrition from their parents and families, students do not have sufficient level of knowledge on nutrition and cannot fully understand the qualities of nutritional elements and requirements for nutrition in sportsmen, the level of dietary habits of students are not as same as children in development phase and athletes' level of dietary habits, one-half of instructions given by trainers have not been properly applied and trainers cannot control the athlete students to a great extent. As a consequence, it has been considered that our students/children who are prospective athletes of the future have not been sufficiently informed and controlled about nutrition in sportsmen/sportswomen. Keywords: Sport, Nutrition, Summer Sports Schools