The evaluation of eating attitude and nutrition knowledge in the Turkish national active junior and senior judo team

This study was aimed to evaluate the eating attitude and nutrition knowledge of Turkish national active junior and senior judo team. 94 athletes participated in the study. By generating a data collection form, anthropometric features of the participants, and questions about their nutritional knowledge were collected. Their eating attitude and behavior were measured by the eating attitude test (EAT-40). As a result, is determined that consuming water and losing weight before the competition is statistically significant according to body mass index (BMI; p: 0.010; p < 0.01). The BMI of the athletes who consumed two or less liters of water per day was lower compared to the athletes with higher water consumption. Moreover, the athletes who lost weight before the competition had a lower BMI than the athletes who did not lose weight before the competition was observed. When the participants were evaluated in terms of their EAT-40 scores, it was determined that their nutritional knowledge status, the participants' daily meal skipping status, the water consumption, the weight loss before the competition, and the meal consumption before and after the competition was not significant. However, athletes need to get more scientific support to improve their nutritional, eating attitudes and to establish proper eating habits. Keywords: sports nutrition, judo athletes nutrition, eating attitude, nutritional knowledge