Browsing by Author "Engström, Sofia"

The aim of this master’s thesis is to find out the experiences of ninth grader boy (assumed) athletes about their eating habits and food choices in everyday life and what kind of eating habits boy athletes have. Furthermore, the study aims to find out who or what influences and advises young people on nutrition-related issues and what kind of advice has been offered and how they try to follow the given ad-vice. The study was conducted as a qualitative study. The study data was collected as an electronic survey of 12 boy ninth graders from Helsinki. The survey utilized a stimulated enquiry, or “Stimulated recall” as a study method. Respondents were offered a video about eating habits, which was intended to focus the respondents' thoughts on their own lives and the everyday food choices. Respondents were examined in depth both as individuals and as a group, and analysis was formed with the qualitive content analysis. Participants in the study felt that their own eating habits were good or quite good. Respondents’ eating habits and food choices did not vary much on different days. The differences in the meals were reflected in the planning of the food for the com-petition days and the easy-goingness of the day-offs. In planning, boys strive for the timeliness and healthiness of the meals in order to perform as well as possible in sports performance. The days-offs were more relaxed in terms of food. The family and coach were found to have the greatest influence on respondents’ cur-rent eating habits. Special value was given to the advice given by the coaches and the willing to follow the given advice was high. Respondents’ who did not receive advices from their coaches hoped to receive them in the future. In addition, in the boys' responses to the survey, there were significant differences in the skills they have to describe or justify their everyday food choices. Three different response styles were emerged: (1) respondents who are aware of their own food choices, (2) respondents who are unsure of their own food choices, and (3) respondents who did not justify their own food choice answers at all.