Caregivers nutrition knowledge and perspectives on the enablers and barriers to nutrition provision for male academy football players.

Background: The assessment of nutrition knowledge, alongside the enablers and barriers to optimal dietary intake, in youth football players has previously been documented. However, there is comparatively little research on either of these within parents or host families, which is of value to understand given the vital role that these stakeholders play as the primary food provider to young football players. Thus, the purpose of this study was to assess the nutrition knowledge of these caregivers and explore their perceptions of the barriers and enablers to nutrition provision for male academy football players.

Methods: A validated 35-item online questionnaire (A-NSKQ) was completed by 30 parents and 31 host family providers of youth academy football players from 16 different professional football clubs in England. The questionnaire consisted of 35 questions (total), 11 of which focussed on the assessment of general nutrition knowledge (GNK) and the remaining 24 assessed sports nutrition knowledge (SNK). Scores are presented as a percentage for total and each sub-section (GNK & SNK) and classified by the following rating: "poor" (0-49%); "average" (50-65%); "good" (66-75%); and "excellent" knowledge (76-100%). Differences in Total, GNK and SNK were compared between parents and host families using Independent-samples t-tests, with the alpha value set at p < 0.05 for all tests. A series of focus groups was also conducted with six parents and twelve host family representatives from four clubs to explore their perspectives of the enablers and barriers to providing nutrition support to youth football players. Thematic analysis was used to interpret the data.

Results: Host family providers demonstrated significantly better total nutrition knowledge than Parents (49.95   ±   11.64% vs. p = 42.67   ±   14.43%; p = 0.035), although the knowledge of both groups is classed as "poor." For the sub-sections of GNK & SNK, GNK was considered "average" and significantly better than SNK, which was classed as "poor" (GNK = 58.12   ±   16.87% vs. SNK = 40.98   ±   14.91%; p < 0.001). Host family providers reported significantly better SNK than parents (44.89   ±   13.21% vs. 36.94   ±   15.69%; p = 0.037) whilst no significant differences were observed in GNK between groups (61.00   ±   15.07% vs. 55.15   ±   18.33%; p = 0.180). Three key themes were generated relating to the caregivers' perceptions of the barriers and enablers to their food provision: 1) Club Support and Communication; 2) Time and Financial Resources; 3) Player-specific Characteristics.

Conclusions: These findings suggest a clear need for football clubs to educate caregivers in the fundamental principles of healthy nutrition and football-specific nutrition requirements and encourage clubs to develop initiatives to better support caregivers in helping to young players to meet their dietary requirements.