SPORTS NUTRITIONAL KNOWLEDGE,ATTITUDE AND PRACTICE OF ADOLESCENT CRICKET PLAYERS

Good nutrition is an important component besides training for athletic success. Adolescent athlete's nutritional demands are high to meet the requirements of both growth and sports performance. The lack of sports nutritional knowledge often leads to poor dietary practices which in turn affects athletic achievements. Cricket is an endurance sports in which following a proper diet with respect to the sport is essential. The present study aims to evaluate the sports nutrition knowledge, attitude and practice ofadolescent cricket players and compare between male and female players. Atotal number of 105 cricketers comprising 57% male and 43% female cricket players. A self -framedquestionnaire used in the study included 10 questions each on sports nutrition knowledge, attitude and practice. Majority of the cricket players selected were in the age group of 17- 19 years and doing their under graduation studies. The results of sports nutritional KAP revealed a poor level of knowledge in sports nutrition domains with better mean knowledge score of 10.43 ± 1.77 among females than males (11.69 ± 2.51), whereas mean attitude score was found to be high among male cricketers 36.11 ± 0.88 than females (34.24 ± 0.31) which were statistically significant based on gender. A non-significant difference was observed in dietary practices with the mean score of 5.35 ± 1.65 and 5.02 ± 1.89 in male and female cricket players respectively. The adolescent players get confused information from various unreliable sources such as peers and online media. The low KAP scores of both male and female adolescent cricket players indicated the necessity for continuous nutrition education from a sports nutritionist for better improvement in overall health and sports performance.