RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN NUTRITIONAL KNOWLEDGE, DIETARY HABITS, AND ATHLETIC PERFORMANCE AMONG UNIVERSITY ATHLETES
Kumar Neeraj · International Research Journal of Scientific Reports and Reviews · 2026
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.