Health Status and Nutritional Knowledge of Athlete-students Engaged in Two Different Sports Activity

Purpose: The purpose of the study was to assess the health status and the nutritional knowledge of the child-athlete students engaged in two different sports activity-Basketball and Athletics and find out the difference in health status and nutritional knowledge among these two different groups of child- athlete students.Materials and Methods: A total of thirty two (32) student-athletes were selected for this study, among them 13 were from an Athletics coaching centre (Gr-A) and 19 were from a Basketball coaching centre (Gr-B). There were 18 girls and 14 boys and the average age of the athlete-students was 12.58 years. Health status and nutritional knowledge were the criterion measure in this study. Health status was assessed by measuring body weight and BMI. Nutritional knowledge was assessed by self made questionnaire. Inter group difference was analyzed by t-test. Only 0.05 level of significance was considered in this study. All statistical calculations were done using SPSS software.Results: Results revealed that body weight was different for Gr-A (41.0 Kg) and Gr-B (57.13 Kg) boys’ athlete and the difference (t=2.035) was statistically significant (p<0.05). The BMI value for Gr-A and Gr-B boys was 17.89 Kg/m2 and 25.9 Kg/m2 respectively and difference in BMI value (t=2.828) was statistically significant. The nutritional knowledge (NK) score for Gr-A and Gr-B boys was 8.00 and 9.25 and difference in NK value (t=1.139) was statistically not-significant. For the girl the results revealed that body weight was different for Gr-A (44.43 Kg) and Gr-B (42.91 Kg) girls-athlete and the difference (t=0.294) was statistically not-significant (p>0.05). The BMI value for Gr-A and Gr-B girls-athlete was 18.73 Kg/m2 and 18.83 Kg/m2 respectively and difference in BMI value (t=0.058) was also statistically not-significant. The nutritional knowledge (NK) score for Gr-A and Gr-B girls-athlete was 7.00 and 11.00 respectively and difference in NK value (t=3.227) was statistically significant (p<0.05). The nutritional knowledge (NK) score for Boys and Girls athlete-students was also analyzed and it has been found that the NK score for boys athlete was 8.71 and for girls athlete was 10.06 and difference in NK value between the boys and girls athlete was found (t=1.237) statistically not- significant.