Browsing by Subject "voimistelu"

The purpose of this study was to examine and analyze gymnast girls’ meal rhythms. Previous studies show that most suitable meal rhythm for athletes is to eat 5−7 times a day. The time between meals shouldn’t be more than four hours and post-exercise meal should be eaten within an hour from the end of the practice. The meal rhythm of rest days should be similar to the training days meal timing and weekends’ meal rhythms shouldn’t differ from weekdays’ meal rhythms. By eating together with children, parents can teach the importance of regular eating. This study aims to find out what kind of meal rhythms the gymnasts have and how their meal rhythms differ from recommendations. The research questions are 1) What kind of meal rhythm the gymnasts have on weekday training days? 2) What kind of meal rhythm the gymnasts have on weekend training days? 3) What kind of meal rhythm the gymnasts have on rest days? The data consists of six food diaries. The persons who participated in the study are 11−13 year-old girls, who practice aerobic gymnastics four times a week. The gymnasts kept a food diary for five days. The subjects wrote down when they ate the meal, what they ate, as well as who they ate the meal with. The data was analyzed by using content analyzes. The results show that more meals were eaten on weekday training days than on weekend training day. On weekday training days the gymnasts ate mainly 5−6 meals, on weekend training days’ 4−5 meals and on rest days’ 3−6 meals. Over 4 hour break between meals appeared less on rest days. The gymnasts ate with their parents 1−2 times a day on the weekdays and more on the weekends. The results indicate that eating with parents on weekdays is focused in the late evening and on weekends they tend to eat together in the morning and afternoon.