The effects of a nutrition education program on nutritional knowledge, eating habits and performance of military athletes from Lebanon

Background A longitudinal controlled intervention study aimed to assess the impact of a nutrition education program on Lebanese athletes' nutritional knowledge, eating habits, body composition and performance.Methods A sample of 198 athletes was divided into an intervention group (IG) and a control group (CG). The intervention group followed a 4-month intensive nutrition education program set to ensure sufficient time for meaningful learning and behavior change, while remaining short enough to maintain participant engagement and minimize dropout. The athletes' nutritional status and performance were assessed before and after the intervention using a validated food frequency questionnaire, knowledge and eating habits questionnaires, four 24-h recalls, a beep test to estimate VO2 max and one-repetition maximum tests to measure muscle strength. Paired-sample t-tests, McNemar's test and Mixed Factorial Anova test were conducted to examine the effects of the nutritional education program on nutrition knowledge, hydration status, eating habits and performance within both groups.Results The nutritional knowledge score increased in both groups after the intervention, with a significantly greater improvement of 23% observed in the IG (from 62.6% to 77.1%; p < 0.001). The IG also demonstrated a notable improvement in eating habits compared to the CG (p < 0.001). Following the intervention, body fat percentage decreased from 21.3% ± 6.0% to 18.8% ± 6.0% (p < 0.001), and waist circumference significantly decreased in the IG (p < 0.001). The IG increased their consumption of vegetables (p < 0.001) and yogurt (p = 0.002) and decreased their intake of sugars (p < 0.001) and sunflower oil (p = 0.002). Improvements in both aerobic and strength performance were observed in the IG (p < 0.001).Conclusions The nutrition education program led to significant improvements in athletes' nutritional knowledge and eating habits, which consequently resulted in enhanced performance.