A Study of the Beliefs of Female Students in Pakdasht City about Obese People and the Related Factors

Background: The present study was conducted to investigate the beliefs of girl students in Pakdasht city about obese people and the factors related to it. Methods: This cross sectional study was conducted on 350 grade-seven students in Pakdasht city. The data collection tool was a BAOP questionnaire, including demographic information and eight five-choice questions on the beliefs about obesity and obese people. To analyze the data, the SPSS 16 software as well as Chi-Square test and one-way ANOVA were used. Results: The result reported, 141 (40.3%) students disagreed with the sentence "Obesity often occurs as a result of an illness." and 74 ones (21.1%) totally disagreed. Or, asking a question about the eating habits of obese people ("The majority of obese people have bad eating habits that lead to their obesity.") indicated that 73 students (20.9%) totally agreed and 128 ones (36.6%) agreed with the idea. In addition, 15 students (4.2%) totally agreed with the sentence “Obesity rarely occurs due to the person's lack of will.” Conclusion: The findings of this study showed that high school female students had little knowledge about the causes of obesity.