The Female Collegiate Cross-Country Runner: Nutritional Knowledge and Attitudes

OBJECTIVE: To assess the nutritional knowledge and attitudes of the female collegiate cross-country runner. Awareness of the deficient areas of nutritional knowledge, important in performance and healing, may assist professionals in educating female runners. DESIGN AND SETTING: In this descriptive study, subjects completed a nutritional questionnaire with both quantitative and qualitative components. In a 9-day period, the nutritional questionnaire was administered at 6 colleges and universities in Illinois and Michigan. SUBJECTS: The convenience sample included female collegiate cross-country runners (N = 60). Overall compliance rate was 61% (60 out of 99). MEASUREMENTS: Our questionnaire included a demographics section, 76 Likert-scale true-false questions, and 7 open-ended questions. True-false questions were divided into subscales of 3 or more questions based on the topic. Statistical analyses focused on quantitative analysis. RESULTS: Runners who completed a nutrition course in college scored significantly higher overall. Runners scored significantly higher in the knowledge for the athlete component than in the general knowledge component. Several specific areas of deficient nutritional knowledge were identified. Overall, the mean of the runners' total positive responses for the attitudes component of the questionnaire was 90.6%. CONCLUSIONS: Our findings suggest that the female collegiate cross-country runner lacks nutritional knowledge critical to preventing nutrition-related health problems. Because most of the runners in our study exhibited positive attitudes toward nutrition, female collegiate cross-country runners may be receptive to nutritional education.