The comparison of offline and online nutrition education on body mass index in rugby athletes during the covid-19 pandemic (The body mass index profile of jakarta athletes during covid-19 pandemic)

The Covid-19 pandemic has brought many changes to athletes' habits, such as being at home more often, overeating and reduced physical activity that may increase the risk of increased BMI in Rugby athletes during the pandemic. This may have a major impact on athlete's performance. Nutrition education interventions carried out during a pandemic must also change. Education that is usually done using the offline method must now also be modified into nutrition education using the online method. Nutrition education has been proven to increase knowledge and body mass index in athletes, but no one has compared body mass index from online and offline nutrition education. The aim of this study was to compare the body mass index of Rugby athletes in offline and online nutrition education. The author conducted offline nutrition educations in March 2019, and online nutrition educations in December 2020. After the end of the nutrition educations, the body mass index of Rugby athletes were measured. From 30 Rugby athletes, there were 23 athletes who took part in both nutrition education activities, so the data of these 23 athletes were used in this study. The data were analyzed using General Linear Model Repeated Measures. The result showed significant differences between body mass index of Rugby athletes after offline nutrition educations 24.78 ±2.78, to body mass index after online nutrition educations 25.73±2.24. This study showed that offline nutrition educations were significantly better than online nutrition educations (F=5.147, p<0.05). Our findings indicate that nutrition education methods are important to affect body mass index in athletes. It implies that the sport nutrition team should consider to prioritize the athletes with nutrition educations using the offline methods. Hence, further research needs to be carried out to examine athletes' level of knowledge, training patterns and nutrition intake of athletes before and during the pandemic.