Investigation of The Nutritional Approaches of Student Athletes During The Covid-19 Epidemic

ABSTRACT

The aim of this study is to investigate the nutritional approaches of student athletes studying at the university during the coronavirus outbreak period. Participants consisted of students studying and doing sports at the University. 446 students, 246 males and 200 females, participated in the study. Besides the personal form, students were filled the questionnaire testing questionnaire. Students voluntarily participated. The surveys were done on social media. Nutritional habits questionnaire consists of 12 questions. In the preparation of the survey questions, the questions proved validity of the researches which have been done on the subject before have been used. SPSS 23.00 package program was used in statistical analyses. Kolmogorov-Smirnov test was performed to test whether the data was normally distributed and it was determined that the data showed normal distribution. Independent t-test, paired t-test, unidirectional variance analysis and LSD tests were used in statistical operations. There was no significant difference in students' nutrition approaches by gender, both in the pre-outbreak period and in the outbreak period points (p> 0.05). Nutrition scores were significantly increased during the outbreak period (p <0.001). A significant difference was found between the students who felt bad before the epidemic and those who felt well before the epidemic and their nutritional scores according to the levels they felt (p <0.05). A significant difference was found between the pre-outbreak period and post-epidemic nutrition scores of the sports faculty students (p <0.05). During the coronavirus epidemic, university student athletes have either increased their nutritional opportunities or have changed their eating habits positively to keep their immune systems strong or both. The fact that sports faculty students have better nutrition compared to other faculty students can be attributed to their taking courses in nutrition, health and similar. It is recommended to give lectures or seminars on nutrition to athlete students.