Page 4 Ashley, Jacques, Smith • A Nutrition Survey Another study by Andrews, et. al. also shows the extreme lack of nutrition knowledge common in collegiate athletes. In this study, a nutrition questionnaire was completed by 123 Division I athletes, and only 11 of the athletes scored above a 75% on the questionnaire (Andrews, et. al.). Additionally, we found several studies that assessed the sources of nutritional information. These studies primarily identified family, teammates, and the internet as the main sources for nutrition information and practice. In one of these studies, the entire athletic staff was also part of the survey. Of all the athletic staff, Athletic Trainers were found to be most knowledgeable about nutrition. However, it is obvious that many athletes are not aware of this, as only a few listed their athletic trainer as their source of information. Conversely, the literature indicates that nutrition education is helpful in both nutrition consumption assessments and in scores on nutrition knowledge tests. Many athletes who scored well on these surveys had taken nutrition classes or been informed by an educated professional. Unfortunately, the number of “good” scores (75% or higher) was quite low on the nutrition surveys that we encountered. There is certainly a desire from athletes to be more knowledgeable about what they eat. Several of these surveys included a question in their questionnaires that inquired of the level of interest in further nutrition education. A strong response in this regard was noted. In light of this, we also believe that there is a strong interest in nutrition education in the athletic community at large. We anticipate response rates for our questionnaire to be high and that significant results could be gleaned from a study such as ours. The desire to have good nutrition stems from the strong belief that nutrition is important, even critical to general health and athletic performance. Many if not most of the participants in these various studies verified the importance of good nutrition. These populations seem to understand, at least in concept, that healthy food affects one’s body in a positive way, particularly when one is regularly active. One source was specifically intent on driving this point home (Sceery, S. Nutritional Impact on Performance in Student-Athletes: Reality and Perception). This study saw several athletes who agreed that good nutrition was essential yet did not follow those claims with action. Another reason why we believe that our research proposal is important is because there are many people that believe that they know enough about nutrition to be healthy and sustain their athletic activities. Two surveys that we reviewed (Jagim AR, et al and Sangeetha, K. M) included questions about how much the individual thought they knew about nutrition and compared those answers to those individual’s scores. Many participants were much more confident in their personal nutrition knowledge than their scores showed. Many of these nutrition questionnaires include the inquiry of the source of the participants' nutrition. For many of the collegiate athletes, the dining hall on campus was the primary source of food. Thus, the athletes must comply with the availability of whatever the dining
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