摘要：Sports nutrition is one of the most important factors for sport performance and success. Due to limited financial resources young athletes' education and care about nutrition is usually assumed by coaches and parents. The aim of the study was to investigate nutrition-related knowledge and dietary habits of future sports pedagogues and young athletes' parents. Secondary aim of this study was to investigate the impact of parental nutrition-related knowledge and dietary habits on the quality of athlete children's nutrition habits. The sample consisted of 108 subjects, students from Faculty of Kinesiology University of Zagreb (39 male, 19 female; age 22.3 ± 1.65) and parents of young athletes participating in 16 different sports (17 male, 33 female; age 45 ± 7.4). Data were collected using the method of written questionnaires consisting of 40 nutrition knowledge questions. Questions were grouped into 7 categories testing specific knowledge on proteins, carbohydrates, fats, vitamins and minerals, hydration, diet and influence of nutrition on sport performance, and were additionally classified according to importance of a particular question for the profession of a coach into three categories: basic knowledge, advisable knowledge and advanced knowledge. Best overall knowledge was noticed for the influence of nutrition on sport performance and hydration (72.3% and 71.8%) and the worst on proteins and fats (44.0% and 56.0%). When answers were analyzed across the three nutritional knowledge categories, the highest percentage of correct answers was in the group of basic knowledge (77.4%). However, as the level of question difficulty increased, the number of correct answers decreased in each category, indicating almost linear decline of knowledge (advisable knowledge 67.5%, advanced knowledge 49.8% of correct answers). Spearman's rank correlation coefficient (rs) showed statistically significant correlations between nutrition knowledge and dietary habits were noticed in both groups (rs=0.30, rs=37; p<0.05).
