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Associations Between Nutrition Knowledge, Body Composition, and Cardiopulmonary Exercise Performance in Adolescent
Andreea Simina Dumitrescu1,2, Alexandru Alexandru3, Sorin-Ovidiu Brîndescu1,4
1Department of Kinetotherapy, Faculty of Physical Education and Sports, West University of Timișoara, Bulevardul Vasile Pârvan 4, 300223 Timisoara, Romania.
Background:
Optimizing physical performance in youth football requires a comprehensive understanding of the interplay among behavioural factors, structural body composition, and functional cardiorespiratory capacity. While sports nutrition knowledge is hypothesized to influence athletic development, its concurrent relationships with regional body compartments and objective cardiopulmonary exercise testing (CPET) metrics remain poorly characterized in adolescent athletes.
Methods:
A cross-sectional study approach analysed body composition via bioelectrical impedance analysis (BIA), maximal cardiorespiratory testing, and sports nutrition knowledge evaluation using the Nutrition for Sport Knowledge Questionnaire (NSKQ). Structural associations and functional predictive capacities were analysed.
Results:
The cohort demonstrated an average VO2max of 51.18 ± 16.67 mL/kg/min and a mean total nutrition knowledge score of 43.56 ± 18.06 out of 81 (53.8%). Total and domain-specific nutrition knowledge scores were not associated with body mass index (BMI), fat-free mass (FFM), or fat-free mass percentage (FFM%). Higher nutrition knowledge scores were independently associated with superior VO2max and anaerobic threshold (AT) metrics. Exploratory geographic analyses revealed that rural-residing participants possessed significantly higher cardiorespiratory performance values and greater baseline nutrition knowledge profiles than their urban peers.
Conclusions:
In adolescent male football players, sports nutrition knowledge was not associated with static body composition measures but showed exploratory positive associations with selected cardiorespiratory fitness markers. These findings should be interpreted as cross-sectional and hypothesis-generating, as some potential confounding mediators were not assessed. These findings suggest that higher sports nutrition literacy may serve as a starting point for performance-supportive behaviours and metabolic conditioning, to some degree, warranting future interventional studies.
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