Brief Education Intervention Increases Nutrition Knowledge and Confidence of Coaches of Junior Australian Football Teams

Abstract

This study evaluated the impact of a brief (20-min) nutrition education intervention embedded in an existing mandatory coach education course for coaches of junior (8-12 years old) Australian football teams. A total of 284 coaches (68% of 415 coaching course participants) completed a presession questionnaire, and 110 coaches (27% of coaching course participants) completed an identical postsession questionnaire. The responses to the pre- and postsession surveys were matched for 78 coaches. Coaches' ratings of their own understanding of the nutritional needs of young athletes (6.81, 8.95; p < .001), the importance of young athletes adhering to a healthy diet (9.09, 9.67; p = .001), their confidence in their own nutrition knowledge (7.24, 8.64; p < .001), and their confidence in advising young athletes on nutrition and hydration practices (6.85, 8.62; p < .001), all significantly improved following the education session. Nearly all coaches (>95%) provided a correct response to six of the 15 nutrition and hydration knowledge questions included in the presession questionnaire. Even with this high level of presession knowledge, there was a significant improvement in the coaches' nutrition and hydration knowledge after the education session across five of the 15 items, compared with before the education session. The results of this study suggest that a simple, short nutrition education intervention, embedded in an existing coach education course, can positively influence the nutrition knowledge and self-efficacy of community-level, volunteer coaches of junior sports participants.

Education and Diet in the Scientific Literature: A Study of the Productive, Structural, and Dynamic Development in Web of Science

“…In addition to a sedentary lifestyle, obesity is affecting a large part of the population because they do not follow the appropriate nutritional recommendations for a proper diet [3,4]. As a consequence of this worrying situation, educational centers are carrying out initiatives and training programs to encourage the promotion of dietary education with the aim of improving students' knowledge [6,7,[9][10][11] and to encourage an active and healthy life in order to reduce the possibility of suffering from certain diseases resulting from a poor diet [17][18][19].…”

“…It has been proven that a four-week-long nutritional education program can help to improve dietary and nutritional patterns in adolescents [9]. Along these lines, other experts postulate that a diet education of only 20 min can cause a positive impact on young people's knowledge about nutrition [10].…”

Interventions in Nutrition Education for Improving the Performance of Integrated Health Care

“…Setelah dilaksanakan kelas gizi pada kelompok intervensi, pengetahuan ibu balita hampir sama dengan kelompok kontrol. Perubahan dan peningkatan penge-tahuan pada kelompok perlakuan merupakan hasil dari kegiatan pendidikan kesehatan dalam jangka waktu pendek (Belski et al, 2018). Hasil temuan Lubis (2015) menunjukkan pengetahuan dan keterampilan kader dalam kegiatan penimbangan balita di posyandu meningkat setelah mengikuti training melalui metode dua arah, adanya dialog, proses simulasi dan praktik.…”

Dietary Intervention through Flipped Learning as a Techno Pedagogy for the Promotion of Healthy Eating in Secondary Education

“…In this sense, the fact of being overweight or obese can generate serious public health problems [46], affecting the increase in the mortality rate [47]. In the educational field, the assimilation of good eating habits in students [48] acquires great relevance, given that the actions developed through transversal treatment or nutritional education programs promote adequate dietary guidelines [49,50] while avoiding bad praxis, among which is the intake of sugars and other substances harmful to health [51,52], especially in those people who have various diseases, such as diabetes or cardiovascular problems [53,54].…”