Abstract:
Nutrition is a factor in sports performance, injury prevention, and maintaining the
health status of athletes. Nutritional knowledge (NK) has the potential to affect eating
patterns and improve an athlete’s performance. Despite the importance of NK, the
level of sports nutrition knowledge (SNK) of Sri Lankan elite-level athletes has not been
evaluated. Therefore, this study aimed to evaluate the current level of SNK among
Sri Lankan elite-level athletes. This study was conducted quantitatively, and a crosssectional
questionnaire was used to evaluate the SNK. A total of one hundred and fifty
(n = 150) elite-level athletes were recruited for a survey using a stratified, purposive
sampling method. The study participants were from nine different sports, including track
and field (n = 30), netball (n = 10), volleyball (n = 20), karate (n = 20), weightlifting
(n = 16), taekwondo (n = 14), football (n = 20), table tennis (n = 10), and badminton
(n = 10). The collected data were analyzed by descriptive statistics, means and onesample
t-test. Athletes with an overall score of at least 46 out of 60 for the questionnaire
that indicate they have higher knowledge about sports nutrition. In this study, the mean
score on the SNK test was 34.76±2.47. According to this study, NK scores indicated that
the differences between the means of the different sports were statistically significant
(p<0.05). These results suggested that inadequate SNK among elite-level Sri Lankan
athletes varied according to their sport. Athletes should have a good understanding of
nutrition in order to maintain the necessary levels of health, body composition, and
sports performance. Moreover, coaches also must have adequate knowledge of sports
nutrition to guide athletes. Future research should concentrate on evaluating the impact
of nutrition education interventions for athletes and coaches.
