NUTRITION KNOWLEDGE OF THE STUDENTS OF THE FACULTY OF KINESIOLOGY AT ZAGREB UNIVERSITY AND CROATIAN BASKETBALL COACHES

Nowdays the nutrition is often associated with the top sports result. It is considered to be one of essential factors for success for each single sportsman in his sports career. Every training process causes an intensified metabolic, physical and psychical exhaustion. The objective of this research is to determine the level of knowledge on nutrition, smoking habits and consumption of alcoholic beverages of the students of the Faculty of Kinesiology at Zagreb University and Croatian basketball coaches. The respondents were divided in two samples. The first sample consisted of the students of the Faculty of Kinesiology at Zagreb University (n = 100), and the other sample were Croatian basketball coaches (n = 61). The sport nutrition knowledge and eating habits were determined through the corresponding questionnaire. The purpose of the questionnaire was to determine the knowledge level of nutrition, the knowledge of the parts of a nutrition diet which enables the sportsmen to get enough energy for their training and competition, of various food suplements, of the meals taken before, during and after competitions and of compensation of the fluid loss.