NUTRITION KNOWLEDGE AND ATTITUDES AMONG CLEMSON UNIVERSITY STUDENT-ATHLETES

A Thesis Presented to the Graduate School of Clemson University

In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Master of Science Nutrition

by Ashley Nicole Dunnigan May 2010

Accepted by: Beth Kunkel, Committee Chair Gail Delicio Karen Kemper

i

ABSTRACT Participants in this study were 95 Clemson University student-athletes who were currently on the varsity men’s and women’s soccer, tennis, track and field, and swimming and diving who completed a survey on nutrition knowledge and attitudes. The mean total point score on the survey was 17.48 + 1.71. The mean score on knowledge questions on the survey was 11.59 + 3.14 or 46.3%. Females had a slightly higher mean score (12.3+ 3.03 or 49.2%) than males (10.9 + 3.13 or 43.6%) on the knowledge questions. The mean score on attitude questions was 5.89+ 1.67 or 58.9%. Females had a slightly higher mean score (6.19 + 1.53 or 61.9%) than the males (5.60 + 1.76 or 56%) on the attitude questions. A multiple regression analysis for impact of sport, gender, class rank, previous nutrition course, and eating situation on total score on the survey gave an overall R2 of 0.174 (F= 3.75, p= 0.004). There was no significant unique effect of class rank (p = 0.084), sport (p= 0.079), and eating situation (p= 0.079) for this model. The unique effect of gender (p= 0.003) and taking a nutrition course (p= 0.036) were statistically significant. Even though the proposed model was statistically significant, it did not adequately predict performance on the survey. The model predicted that females were to score 2.5 points higher on the survey than males and that those who reported taking a nutrition course in the past were to score 1.7 points lower than those who had not taken a nutrition course. This most likely reflects the relatively small