Skip to main content
  1. Home
  2. Health & Fitness
  3. News

Do student athletes know how to properly use nutrition as fuel? New research

The researchers had one overarching question: Are student athletes being taught the important basics of nutrition?

teenage football team high school athlete
Yuraforrat / Pexels

Our teenage years are an interesting time, and I remember that I definitely wasn’t thinking about optimizing my nutrition during adolescence. At all stages of life, the right nutrition can make a difference to your physical fitness level. Consuming a healthier diet with nutrients, vitamins, and protein has been proven to improve athletic performance.

Recently, researchers explored teenagers’ knowledge of proper nutrition and how much high school athletes really know about eating right and using food as fuel. 

Recommended Videos

The study

balanced healthy meal in bowl
Polina Tankilevitch / Pexels

The researchers had one overarching question: Are students being taught the important basics of nutrition? In a study in the Journal Nutrients, 44 teenage student athletes filled out a questionnaire designed to determine general nutrition knowledge and eating for athletic competition. 

The results

La Crosse high school player
Pixabay / Pexels

The Abridged Sports Nutrition Knowledge Questionnaire was telling and revealed that teen athletes have a significant lack of knowledge about nutrition facts. Having this knowledge could help athletes enhance performance and recovery.

Researchers reported that the teen athletes had a surprisingly low level of general nutrition and sports nutrition knowledge, and they weren’t sure how to eat a balanced diet for health. Notably, the teens didn’t know much about the key nutrients needed to effectively compete and optimize fitness

teenage athlete on field wearing helmet
Matthew Goeckner / Pexels

Here are the details:

  • Students only got around 45% of the answers right overall.
  • Students scored 58% on the general nutrition knowledge.
  • They scored 35% on sports nutrition. 
  • 41% of athletes surveyed said their sports organizations didn’t provide access to a nutritionist, dietitian, or nutritional information to guide eating choices. 
  • Athletes mostly turned to their family, friends, or coaches to help them understand food choices.
  • At 37%, the most common barrier to healthy eating was a lack of knowledge about nutrition.
  • The next biggest barrier was a lack of energy or motivation at 34%.

Concluding thoughts

high school teenager on field drinking carton
RDNE / Pexels

The researchers pointed to the excess of social media and how teens are inundated with conflicting information. One of the major takeaways from this research is the need to increase general nutrition education and sports-specific nutrition information and guidance in sports organizations and schools. 

As a nutrition and science writer, I’ve previously spoken as a guest lecturer to high school classes, and I can honestly say most of the students were genuinely interested in hearing more about nutrition. They wanted to ask questions and learn how to maintain a healthy weight, be healthier in general, and boost their fitness, which is pretty encouraging.

Steph Green (Steph Zee) is a singer-songwriter and professional writer with over 12 years of experience in healthcare and… Read Full Bio
Topics
Mixing fashion and function with an NFL star: Ja’Marr Chase teams with Fabletics to find his confidence
Baseball Cap, Cap, Clothing

We look up to athletes for a lot of reasons. They are the gladiators of our day. They enter an arena and put their bodies on the line specifically for our entertainment. But to do that, there has to be a commitment. A mindset to shoot for the best of the best and devote everything you are to the perfection of your battle. For us, we tend to revere those men who reach the peak of human performance and want to recreate it in the best way we can. Sure, we can follow their fitness routines, but deep down we know we’ll likely never come close. So, instead, we buy their gear. The things they wear to perform and to chase their own glory. Michael Jordan revolutionized this with his shoes, and now the top athletes recreate it with their own collections.

Ja’Marr Chase, Cincinnati’s #1 wide receiver, chose Fabletics to be his vessel of greatness, and his third drop with the brand goes beyond the gridiron, and we got a chance to go beyond it with him.

Read more
Meet the man legendary athletes trust: Therabody founder talks us into recovery
Conversation, Person, Clothing

When I was in the Army, I woke up at 4 am (my clock no longer has two fours), and I would just get to running eight miles. Then go back to bed. No stretching. No warm-up. No cool down. It was never a problem. I am no longer twenty; I am sorry to say. And that means my body needs more. As a matter of fact, it needed more way back then too. I got an opportunity to sit down with chiropractor and recovery expert Dr. Jason Wersland, the man behind that percussive massage gun you have seen at every gym, every yoga studio, and even a lot of office buildings. What was it about his creation under his company, Therabody, that took over the wellness and recovery industries? I asked him. And I dug into why us guys have a hard time accepting that we’re getting older and need to spend more time in prep and recovery.

Just do something. The small decisions you make every day – moving your body, prioritizing sleep, managing stress, taking a few minutes to recover – they compound over time. That’s where real change happens. – Dr. Jason Wersland, Founder, Therabody

Read more
Rumble Boxing vs. Learning the Sweet Science in Mexico City: HIIT Workout or Hit Your Opponent?
Clothing, Footwear, Shoe

First and foremost, anyone who dares throw on boxing gloves and headgear to step into a ring deserves all the respect in the world. It doesn’t matter if you’re sparring in a boxing gym, going three rounds as an amateur, or fighting a sanctioned match. It’s the kind of moxie you can’t help but admire.

Second of all, I won’t lie to you and tell you that my boxing journey began inside a hot and humid boxing gym, like the ones Rocky Balboa trained in during Rocky and Rocky II; far from it. I was 6 years old when I saw my first fight: Julio Cesar Chavez vs. Meldrick Taylor for the WBC light welterweight championship of the world in 1990. I became obsessed with the sport thanks to Oscar De La Hoya’s marvelous run in the 1992 Summer Olympics in Barcelona, where the Golden Boy from East Los Angeles won the gold medal. I told Oscar as much when I interviewed him at length in 2023.

Read more