Knowledge and attitude of sports nutrition among Softball/Baseball athletes in Malaysia Siti Zubaidah Nur Marthuan @ Che Wan Sports Academy, Universiti Putra MalaysiaAzhar Yaacob Sports Academy, Universiti Putra Malaysia Rohaida Hassan Sports Centre, Universiti Putra Malaysia Zawin Nadjah Sports Academy, Universiti Putra Malays
Sport Academy, University Putra Malaysia (UPM)
Abstract
A good knowledge and attitude of sports nutrition is recognized as factors that enhanced athletic performance. However, the level of knowledge and attitude of sports nutrition among athletes and their source of information was not regularly measured and reported. Little research exists about sports nutrition knowledge and current available resources for nutrition information for athletes, coaches, and athletic trainer. The purpose of this study was to measure the knowledge and attitude of sports nutrition among Malaysia Softball/Baseball athletes and their source of information. A self-administered knowledge and attitude of sports nutrition were distributed to athletes who are active playing softball/baseball in Malaysia. 52 survey on google forms were completed. That is 27 male athlete (51.9%) and 25 (48.1%) for female athletes. Mean for sports nutrition knowledge was moderate (16 ± 2.18) with the highest score was 20 and the lowest was 10. 37 respondents (71.1%) have moderate, 14 respondents (26.9%) have high and 1 respondent (1.9%) have low knowledge on sports nutrition. In this study, most of respondents rely in internet (90.4%) as their source of information regarding sports nutrition. Others source of information chosen by respondents are book (61.5%), TV (48.1%), magazine (38.5%), newspaper (32.7%) and dietitian (21.2%). In summary, we identified that respondents have moderate knowledge on sports nutrition and moderate attitude towards sports nutrition. This can be considered low since they were already preparing to be a national athletes. It was also found that most of them rely on internet as their source of information,which is can be questionable on the reliability of the information.
