Page 8 Ashley, Jacques, Smith • A Nutrition Survey Several sources show that even individuals that have a low level of nutrition knowledge frequently possess a positive attitude toward nutrition knowledge and healthy nutrition practices (Dunn et. al 2007, 2008, Sceery et. al). One limitation to our study is that we did not assess athlete attitudes toward nutrition. This could be an area of further study in the future, in order to support current research. An additional limitation from our study is the fact that our participants were limited to only two universities. While our survey was made available to all Ohio GMAC institutions, we only received responses from individuals from two of those universities. Another limitation is that this study limited participants to college-athletes and did not include other populations such as professional athletes. Finally, it could be beneficial to compare the results of the 49-SNKI with results of other more established nutrition questionnaires in order to establish cross validation. Our findings fit with the current body of literature for other qualifications of nutrition knowledge, but our study would have been strengthened by comparing results of two different questionnaires. The purpose of this study was to contribute to the pool of knowledge relating to nutritional knowledge and practices among college athletics. This study observed the nutritional knowledge among athletes in the Division II setting. The results of this study could be the basis for several additional research projects. Nutritional behavior could be observed by using a food log in order to determine the correlation between nutrition knowledge and eating behaviors. In addition, the results of this study could be used to create educational sessions that are specific to the nutritional knowledge at each university. Finally, a study could be done splitting participants into control groups and educating one set of participants and comparing changes in nutritional habits and athletic performance. Based on current literature and studies, the research team expected to find a common lack of nutrition information among the collegiate student-athletes. The findings from this study confirmed that. As consistent with previous studies (Andrews A, et al.), the research team deemed 75% as the threshold for determining “sufficient” proficiency in sports nutrition. Only 19 out of the 150 participants scored above 75% or higher on the 49-SNKI in this study. That comes out to a 28.5% of athletes who possessed “sufficient” nutritional knowledge to support their athletic performance according to the criteria. Further, based on previous literature the team expected to find the common idea that protein is the only way to gain muscle or recover from a workout. While this is not totally accurate, we think this belief is tied to the common sources of nutrition information such as friends, family, or the internet. However, this hypothesis was not supported by the data found in this study. The spread of correct answers concerning questions about protein were inconclusive and no consistent trend could be determined that might have any research significance Lastly, we hypothesized that endurance athletes will score higher on our survey simply because the nature of endurance sports tends to produce athletes who are very conscientious about their performance numbers and what they consume in regard to nutrition. This was not found in the data analysis. The research team compared the scores
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