Determination of obesity awareness levels of secondary education students-Sinop sample

The aim of this study is to determine the obesity awareness levels of secondary school students in the city centre of Sinop province and to show whether there is difference between their awareness in terms of the variables of gender, grade, age, height, weight, sports licence branch and school. The study has a survey model. The universe of the research consists of secondary school students in the city center of Sinop, and the sample consists a total of 1036 secondary school students attending in nine schools in the city center. In this context, data were collected with the help of Obesity Awareness Scale developed by Allen (2011) and adapted into Turkish by Kafkas and Özen (2014). Questions prepared for personal information were also added in the scale and all students asked to answer the scales. In order to achieve the aim of the study, a literature review was conducted after the existing knowledge and conceptual framework related with obesity were included. Following this, data were collected from the students who participated voluntarily in the study by using obesity awareness scale, they were checked one by one, coded according to code instructions and transferred to computer medium and analysed by using SPSS 20.0 package program. It was examined whether there were significant differences in the 3 sub-dimensions and total score of the obesity awareness scale. Descriptive Statistics were used in the analysis of data. Kolmogorov-Smirnov Analysis was conducted to show whether the data were normally distributed. Normality of data distribution was tested to analyze whether total obesity awareness differed in terms of the variables of gender, age, height, weight, grade, licence, branch and school. As a result of the study, it was found that secondary education students had a good level of total obesity awareness. When each sub-dimension of the scale was examined, it was found that students had a mean obesity awareness score of 24,47; a mean nutritional awareness score of 17,82 and a mean physical activity awareness score of 14,02. On the other hand, it was found that female students had higher total obesity awareness than male students; students who had an athlete licence had higher obesity awareness levels than students who did not have a licence; total obesity awareness of 7th graders were significantly higher than that of 6th and 8th graders; 8th graders had significantly higher total obesity awareness than 6th graders; there were no significant differences between students in terms of obesity awareness according to the variability of age; there were no significant differences between students in terms of obesity awareness according to the variables of body mass index and the branch in which athletes had licence, there was a significant difference between students in terms of obesity awareness according to the variable of school; according to the grade variable, the total obesity awareness of the 7th graders was significantly higher than the 6th and 8th grades, and that the 8th graders were significantly higher than the 6th grades, and there was no significant difference between the students according to age, body weight and branch variables. As a conclusion; in this study, which investigated the obesity awareness levels of secondary school students, it was determined that the total obesity awareness level of the students was at a good level, the total obesity awareness of the female students was significantly higher than the male students according to the gender variable, and obesity awareness levels of children who have an athlete license in any branch are higher than others. In line with these results, it is important for future generations to create a healthy and active lifestyle for obesity awareness, starting from childhood and school age.