RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN NUTRITIONAL KNOWLEDGE, DIETARY HABITS, AND ATHLETIC PERFORMANCE AMONG UNIVERSITY ATHLETES
The nutrition of athletes is an essential component of their preparation, recovery, and performance. The objective of this study was to explore the connection between knowledge of nutrition, diet, and sports performance among university athletes. The selected research design was quantitative cross-sectional, which was conducted on 200 University Athletes. The data were collected with the help of a structured questionnaire and analysed using SPSS. Descriptive statistics, Pearson correlation, and multiple linear regression were used. Nutritional knowledge was significantly correlated with athletic performance (r = .154, p = .030), and dietary habits were also significantly correlated with athletic performance (r = .209, p = .003). There was a significant correlation between nutritional knowledge and dietary habits (r = .231, p = .001). The overall model was significant (F(2,197) = 5.777, p = .004; R2 = .55%) using regression analysis. There was a significant effect of dietary habits, but not of nutritional knowledge itself, on performance.