The relationship of sustainable nutritional awareness and practices with rates and patterns of sports injuries among Iraqi Stars League Players
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.47197/retos.v78.118766Keywords:
Sustainable nutritional awareness, injury epidemiology, Iraq stars league, muscle recoveryAbstract
Objective: This study aims to evaluate the level of sustainable nutritional awareness and practices and analyze their correlation with the rates and patterns of sports injuries.
Methodology: Adopting a descriptive correlational approach, the researcher applied a standardized scale and a FIFA-compliant injury surveillance log on a stratified random sample of 260 players from the Iraqi Stars League (2025-2026).
Results and Discussion: Results indicated a "moderate" overall level of nutritional culture with a mean score of (29.50/50), showing a notable deficiency in the "Recovery and Fluids" domain. At the same time, muscle injuries dominated with a prevalence of 55.8%. Statistical analyses confirmed a significantly strong negative correlation (r = -0.682, p < 0.05) between nutritional awareness and injury frequency. Furthermore, the Chi-square test (x2 = 12.45, p = 0.002) revealed that players with lower awareness are significantly more prone to physiological injuries due to glycogen depletion and delayed tissue repair.
Conclusions: The study recommends mandating the appointment of sports nutritionists as a key licensing requirement to ensure player safety.
References
Abdullateef AbdulJabbar, M., M. Ali, M., Ali Khalaf, Y., Hadi Hammad, S., Khalid Awad, A., Jaber Mushref, A., & Adham Ali, O. (2025). The effect of mental training (mental visualization and attention focus) on the accuracy and speed of offensive performance in fencing players. Retos, 70, 1097–1113. https://doi.org/10.47197/retos.v70.117026
Al-Shammari, A. (2023). Health and nutritional awareness and its relationship to sports achievement. Arab Journal of Sports Sciences, 15(2), 45-60.
Bahr, R. (2016). Why screening tests to predict injury do not work—and probably never will…: A critical review. British Journal of Sports Medicine, 50(13), 776–780. https://doi.org/10.1136/bjsports-2016-096256
Bahr, R., & Krosshaug, T. (2005). Understanding injury mechanisms: A key component of preventing injuries in sport. British Journal of Sports Medicine, 39(6), 324–329. https://doi.org/10.1136/bjsm.2005.018341
Burke, L. M., Hawley, J. A., Jeukendrup, A., Morton, J. P., Stellingwerff, T., & Maughan, R. J. (2018). Toward a common understanding of diet–exercise strategies to manipulate fuel availability for training and competition preparation in endurance sport. International Journal of Sport Nutrition and Exercise Metabolism, 28(5), 451–463. https://doi.org/10.1123/ijsnem.2018-0289
Close, G. L., Sale, C., Baar, K., & Bermon, S. (2019). Nutrition for the prevention and treatment of injuries in track and field athletes. International Journal of Sport Nutrition and Exercise Metabolism, 29(2), 189–197. https://doi.org/10.1123/ijsnem.2018-0290
Fayyad, F. H., Hammood, Y. M., Ali, O. A., Mushref, A. J., Awad, A. K., & Shanta, A. (2025). Building and legalizing a test to measure the level of football agility of young players. Retos, 68, 1578–1590. https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.47197/retos.v68.116368
Fayyad, F. H., Hammood, Y. M., Ali, O. A., Mushref, A. J., Awad, A. K., & Khalaf, Y. A. (2026). Construction and Standardization of a Reliable Test to Measure Short Aerial Ball Shooting Accuracy in Football. International Journal of Human Movement and Sports Sciences, 14(1), 48–58. https://doi.org/10.13189/saj.2026.140106
Field, A. (2018). Discovering statistics using IBM SPSS Statistics (5th ed.). SAGE Publications.
Fuller, C. W., Ekstrand, J., Junge, A., Andersen, T. E., Bahr, R., Dvorak, J., Hägglund, M., McCrory, P., & Meeuwisse, W. H. (2006). Consensus statement on injury definitions and data collection procedures in studies of football (soccer) injuries. British Journal of Sports Medicine, 40(3), 193–201. https://doi.org/10.1136/bjsm.2005.025270
Hammood, Y. M., Awad, A. K., Ali, O. A., Mushref, A. J., & Hummadi, J. N. (2024). Measuring the aggressive behavior of the teams in the Iraqi Premier League in football and its relation to the results and ranking of the league for the 2022-2023 season. Sportske Nauke i Zdravlje, 14(2), 127–134. https://doi.org/10.7251/SSH2402127H
Heikura, I. A., Uusitalo, A. L., Stellingwerff, T., Bergland, D., Mero, A. A., & Burke, L. M. (2018). Low energy availability is difficult to assess, but outcomes have a large impact on bone injury rates in elite distance athletes. International Journal of Sport Nutrition and Exercise Metabolism, 28(4), 403–411. https://doi.org/10.1123/ijsnem.2017-0313
Khalaf, Y. A., AbdulJabbar, M. A., & Ali, O. A. (2025). The effect of sports job burnout on the performance of workers in student activities departments in Iraqi universities | El efecto del agotamiento laboral deportivo en el rendimiento de los trabajadores de los departamentos de actividades estudiantiles de. Retos, 66, 86–95. https://doi.org/10.47197/retos.v66.113271
Krejcie, R. V., & Morgan, D. W. (1970). Determining sample size for research activities. Educational and Psychological Measurement, 30(3), 607–610. https://doi.org/10.1177/001316447003000308
Larson-Meyer, D. E., Woolf, K., & Burke, L. (2018). Assessment of nutrient status in athletes and the need for supplementation. International Journal of Sport Nutrition and Exercise Metabolism, 28(2), 139–158. https://doi.org/10.1123/ijsnem.2017-0338
Mohammed Hammood, Y., Hussein Rashid, A., & Adham Ali, O. (2025). The effect of a proposed training method using play exercises to develop specific agility and skill performance in football | El efecto de un método de entrenamiento propuesto que utiliza ejercicios de juego para desarrollar la agilidad específica y el re. Retos, 63, 719–728. https://doi.org/10.47197/retos.v63.111095
Mountjoy, M., Sundgot-Borgen, J. K., Burke, L. M., Ackerman, K. E., Blauwet, C., Constantini, N., Lebrun, C., Melin, A., Meyer, N. L., Sherman, R. T., Tenforde, A. S., Torstveit, M. K., & Budgett, R. (2018). IOC consensus statement on relative energy deficiency in sport (RED-S): 2018 update. British Journal of Sports Medicine, 52(11), 687–697. https://doi.org/10.1136/bjsports-2018-099193
Omar, A. F., Hammadi, W. K., Moseekh, L. Z., Muhammad, K. M., Saleh, M. M., & Ali, O. A. (2025). The impact of cognitive training on field intelligence growth and some composite skills of advanced football players | El impacto del entrenamiento cognitivo en el crecimiento de la inteligencia de campo y algunas habilidades compuestas de los jugadores d. Retos, 66, 46–58. https://doi.org/10.47197/retos.v66.113234
Thomas, J. R., Nelson, J. K., & Silverman, S. J. (2015). Research methods in physical activity (7th ed.). Human Kinetics.
Downloads
Published
Issue
Section
License
Copyright (c) 2026 Mustafa Waleed Al-Fahdawi, Ahmed Jamal Al-Fahdawi, Abdalrhim Noori Harbi Harbi, Abdulqader Saeed Abed, Ali Mohammed Khalaf, Omar Ahmed Hammodee, Abubakr Mohamed Sager, Omar Ali Fattah, Mohammed Ghali Khlil, Hanan Hadi Eubayd, Tariq Abdalrahman Mahood, Salah Hadi Hammad, Othman Adham Ali
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
Authors who publish with this journal agree to the following terms:
- Authors retain copyright and ensure the magazine the right to be the first publication of the work as licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution License that allows others to share the work with an acknowledgment of authorship of the work and the initial publication in this magazine.
- Authors can establish separate additional agreements for non-exclusive distribution of the version of the work published in the journal (eg, to an institutional repository or publish it in a book), with an acknowledgment of its initial publication in this journal.
- Is allowed and authors are encouraged to disseminate their work electronically (eg, in institutional repositories or on their own website) prior to and during the submission process, as it can lead to productive exchanges, as well as to a subpoena more Early and more of published work (See The Effect of Open Access) (in English).
This journal provides immediate open access to its content (BOAI, http://legacy.earlham.edu/~peters/fos/boaifaq.htm#openaccess) on the principle that making research freely available to the public supports a greater global exchange of knowledge. The authors may download the papers from the journal website, or will be provided with the PDF version of the article via e-mail.
