The relationship between nutrition knowledge and physical activity levels and healthy lifestyle behaviors of student athletes at university

In order to increase healthy life expectancy and minimize health problems, healthy lifestyle behaviors including nutrition and physical activity are the most fundamental dimensions. This cross-sectional descriptive study was planned to evaluate the relationship between nutrition knowledge and physical activity levels of student athletes at a private foundation university and healthy lifestyle behaviors. The study included 126 student athletes between the ages of 18-27 years who were part of the school team at Istanbul Atlas University. A questionnaire was applied to the participants on the basis of volunteerism. In the questionnaires, general information form, sports nutrition information questionnaire, international physical activity questionnaire, healthy lifestyle behaviors scale and food consumption records were questioned. The mean age of the men, who constituted 63.5% of the sample, was 21.0±2.1 years and the mean age of the women, who constituted 36.5%, was 20.3±1.9 years. Among the women, 45% were first-year students, 28.7% were second-year students, 20.0% were third-year students, and 6.3% were fourth-year students. Among males, 32.6% were first-year students, 52.2% were second-year students, 10.9% were third-year students, and 4.3% were fourth-year students. When the sports branches were analyzed, 38.1% of the participants were interested in strength and power sports and 61.9% were interested in team sports. Of the athlete students, 31.5% received nutrition education and the physical activity levels and healthy lifestyle behaviors total score of the students who received nutrition education were found to be high. In MET scoring, female students (72.5%) were more active than male students (69.6%). The mean sports nutrition knowledge questionnaire score of the participants was 41.32±9.30 and the mean healthy lifestyle behaviors score was 132.23±19.12. It was observed that university student athletes had low nutritional knowledge. The nutrition education they received, the department they studied, and the increase in age and grade level positively affected the nutritional knowledge of the students. As the nutritional knowledge level of the athlete students increased, the degree of activity in physical activity increased and an increase was observed in their total scores by positively affecting their healthy lifestyle behaviors. Keywords: Physical activity, sports nutrition knowledge, healthy lifestyle behaviors