Background: Fitness has recently become a very popular form of physical activity among women. Since more and more fitness clubs are founded, more and more women take up the job of a fitness instructor or participate in fitness classes. Therefore, the studies on female fitness instructors and participants are of great relevance.
Objective: The objective of this study was to compare food behaviour and attitude towards nutritional knowledge in fitness instructors and fitness participants.
Material and methods: The studied population comprised 200 women, including 100 fitness instructors and 100 fitness participants from fitness clubs in Poznań and the vicinity. The studied women filled in questionnaires on food behaviour and attitude towards nutritional knowledge. Statistical analysis was carried out by means of the IBM SPSS Statistics 19 computer programme.
Results: Statistically significant differences were observed in the studied women's age, education, the period of working as a fitness instructor or attending fitness classes and the frequency of teaching fitness classes or attending fitness classes, as well as avoiding poultry. Fitness instructors were older than fitness participants and a higher percentage of them had higher education. The period of working as a fitness instructor was almost twice as long as the period of attending fitness classes. The highest percentage of fitness instructors taught fitness classes more than four times a week, while the highest percentage of fitness participants attended fitness classes three times a week. More fitness participants than fitness instructors avoided poultry.
Conclusions: Unfavourable food behaviour observed in the studied women, both fitness instructors and fitness participants, may increase the risk of diet-related diseases. The observed inadequacies in the studied women's food behaviour, along with their conviction that their diets were adequate and that their nutritional knowledge was sufficient, suggest the necessity to implement education programme to popularise basic dietary recommendations.