Exploring the use of text messages for increasing nutrition knowledge and improving dietary practices in teen athletes (379.6)

Abstract

The nutrition knowledge and dietary practices of teen athletes is important for both their sports performance and overall health. Our approach to improving health communication with teen athletes takes advantage of the increasing prevalence of mobile phone and SMS messaging. This study consists of two parts: 1) conducting knowledge questions regarding nutrition and 2) developing text messages to support teen athletes. For the first part, 129 male high‐school elite wrestlers with a mean age of 16 (15‐17) years old and mean body weight of 66.6kg±15.9 (SD) were asked about their dietary practices along with general nutrition and sports nutrition knowledge. Athletes answered 59.7% of the general nutrition and 63.9% of the sports nutrition questions correctly. 58 % of the athletes believed that vitamins and minerals maintain their energy. 33.4% of the athletes answered incorrectly to the question asking which mineral promotes healthy bones and teeth. 31.8% of the athletes were skipping meals (36.6%, skipping breakfast; 46.3%, skipping lunch). 24.8% of the athletes were using ergogenic aids, and 35.0% and 15.0% were using vitamin mineral mixtures and protein powders respectively. For the second part of the study, over 100 messages were created by college students by obtaining information from popular consumer magazines or websites, health organization websites, and literature review. These messages were refined by researchers for delivery through SMS. Through a participatory process, educational text messages will be tested based on how teen athletes respond to these text messages, and their suggestions for developing additional topics of interest will be considered.