ABSTRACT

Nutrition plays a vital role in improving health and fitness, as well as maximising athletic performance. Interventions combining physical activity (PA) and diet have been shown to yield better health outcomes than exercise alone (Clarke, 2015). Therefore, PA and nutrition should be considered in conjunction to optimise a health/fitness programme. Research has demonstrated that clients expect nutritional advice from fitness professionals and often request in-depth nutritional analysis (McKean et al., 2015) and exercise professionals have been considered the ‘gatekeepers’ of health and exercise information (Santana et al., 2007). However, many exercise qualifications only superficially addresses nutrition. Despite no rigorous guidelines for nutrition practices, it is unwise to neglect the impact nutrition can have in optimising a variety of health/fitness outcomes.