Abstract des Autors

Owing to their conviction that sports medicine should also include the cultural educational development of the athlete, the authors adopted a very interesting and very satisfactory approach in this study of a selected group of young football players, thus enabling their level of maturity to be evaluated. Two groups of young athletes selected by the provincial football representatives were interviewed using the questionnaire drawn up by the authors: the first group of 28 players had a mean age of 13.3 years and are hereafter referred to as group "G" (very young), whereas the second group of 31 athletes had a mean age of 17.8 years and are referred to as group "C" (3rd category). The questionnaire contained questions regarding the reasons why they chose football, as well as on their relations with team companions, parents, technicians, directors and on their dietary. The excellent level of maturity of all those interviewed emerges from an analysis of the data. These young athletes are only very marginally influenced by the illusion of making money or see football as their future profession. As far as concerns dietary habits it is worth underlining that erroneous food patterns are evident above all in group G, namely failure to respect digestion times, the intake of non-optimal foods before and after playing, and also the fact that both groups are firmly convinced that "miracle" foods do not exist. It is worth emphasising that those involved have repeatedly underlined the absence of qualified health workers responsible for monitoring these athletes. The importance of a medical staff who supervise all levels of football cannot be sufficiently stressed: their role is to "educate" these young players and to protect their well-being effectively. Verf.-Referat