Purpose: Nutrition is an important component of any physical fitness program. The main dietary goal for active individuals is to obtain adequate nutrition to optimize health fitness and to increase sports performance. The present study aims to assess the nutrition knowledge, attitude and practice among the selected athletes. Methods:Athletes from five different private colleges situated in Salem District, Tamilnadu, India were selected. A total number of 102 athletes, 32 sportsmen belong to Volleyball discipline, 25 belongs to weightlifter discipline and 45 belong to runners discipline in sports. All the selected athletes were including in the study. The Knowledge, Attitude and Practice (KAP) questionnaire contained ten questions about nutrition knowledge, nine questions about attitudes, and ten questions about dietary practice were collected from the selected athletes. Dietary composition of the sportsmen is also assessed. The collected data was coded and used for evaluation.Results: Results about KAP revealed that 42 per cent of the volleyball players had good nutritional knowledge (60 -69per cent) compared to weight lifters (43per cent) who had satisfactory (50 -59per cent) knowledge about nutrition. Twenty nine per cent of the runners had very good (70 -79per cent) knowledge about nutrition. Regarding food consumption pattern intake of cereals, other vegetables and milk was found to be less compared to the RDA for the athletes. Among the three disciplines sports persons, the mean nutrient intake of the runners is high compared to volleyball and weight lifters. Conclusion:The sports disciplines strongly affected the nutrition knowledge, attitudes and practices of sportsmen. The overall scores indicate that most sportsmen had good knowledge of nutrition and supplements.

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AimTo study the effect of weaning biscuits supplementation of the nutritional parameters and cognitive performance of the selected children.MethodsThree primary schools situated in Salem District, Tamilnadu, India were selected. A total number of 150 school children, 61 from primary school I, 46 from primary school II and 43 from primary school III comprised the study sample. About 80 primary school children with Grade II malnutrition were selected for the experimental study. Home diet without any supplementation was followed by Group I (n = 20, control group), potato flour biscuit was supplemented to Group II (n = 20), wheat biscuits was given to Group III (n = 20) and ragi biscuits were given to Group IV (n = 20) for the period of 3 months. Parameters like anthropometric measurements, hemoglobin content clinical picture and cognitive performance were analyzed before and after supplementation.ResultsResults about Group I (control group) showed no significant difference in height, weight and clinical picture and cognitive performance after three months on their home diet. In Group II, III and IV significant increase in all the above parameters was noticed. More increase was found in Group II children supplemented with potato flour biscuits for a period of 3 months. About cognitive performance better results was obtained in Group II followed by Group III (supplemented with wheat biscuits) and Group IV (supplemented with ragi biscuits). Least was obtained by control group children who are in their home diet.ConclusionAll these observations evident that if such weaning biscuits made with potato flour, wheat and Ragi can form a daily ingredient in their diets, it will bring out better all round development of the children.

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