Examination of obesity awareness of secondary school-age students in terms of playing professional sports and course success

Aim: Obesity, which is a chronic disease, is an important public health problem all over the world, and its prevalence is increasing rapidly in our country. It is important to start taking the necessary precautions in childhood and adolescence to prevent this increase. This study was carried out to determine the obesity awareness of secondary school students and to examine the relationship of this awareness with doing sports or academic success. Method: The study was carried out in Trabzon city center between 20.04.2023 and 20.05.2023. It was held with 635 secondary school students studying at Atatürk Secondary School, Mimar Sinan Secondary School and Pelitli 75. Yıl Cumhuriyet Secondary School in Ortahisar district. 224 of these students are licensed sports students and the control group is 411 students studying in the same class. The participants were asked to fill out an information form including sociodemographic characteristics, sports history and school achievements, and obesity awareness scale for children. IBM SPSS 26.0 program was used in the analysis of the data. Results: The mean age of the participants was 12.48±0.0 years. Body Mass Index (BMI) was 20.73±0.1 kg/m². In the present study, there was no significant difference between the ages and heights of the athletes compared to the control group (p>0.05). While the mean age of the athletes was 12.31±0.0 and the mean height was 150.58±0.4, the mean age of the athletes was 12.57±0.0 and the mean height was 153.10±0.6 in the control group. The mean weight of the athlete group was 43.50±0.4, and the mean weight of the control group was 47.69±0.3 (p<0.001). The obesity awareness of the athletes was 30.68±0.0, and 26.21±0.0 in the control group (p=0.010). Obesity awareness nutrition sub-dimension scores were 21.88±0.0 in the athletes and 20.37±0.0 in the control group. It is significantly higher in athletes (p<0.001). In the study, the overall success score of the athletes (84.31±0.13) was significantly lower than the control group (86.02±0.04) (p<0.001). There is a strong positive correlation between the duration of sports and obesity awareness (r= 0.564 , p<0.001). Conclusion: As a result of the study, it was seen that the obesity awareness of the athletes was high, and their school success was low compared to the control group. Obesity awareness increases as the time spent with sports and sports success increase. Directing students to sports at an early age will help them become healthy individuals with high obesity awareness. In order to increase students' academic success, it may be recommended to increase the time allocated to classes and to receive supportive education outside of school. Keywords: Obesity, Obesity Awareness, Secondary School, Academic Success, Physical activity.