Abstract

This article examines beliefs and attitudes of students attending Compulsory High School Education (ESO, for its acronym in Spanish) in Spain on causes and their attitudes towards obesity. The students involved in the study represent four grades (N = 348). In order to gather student thoughts and attitudes, we designed two ex profeso questionnaires. The results collcted in one of the questionnaires, Beliefs About the Causes of Obesity, participants stated that they weighted factors such as willingness over genetics, exercise, etc, F (4,689, 1627.115) = 108,691, p <.001. Based on the results obtained, participants also believed that obese individually are ultimately responsible for their condition, t (347) = 6936, p <.001. Moreover, the results of the questionnaire, Attitudes towards Childhood Obesity, reflect that 84.84% of participants tend to disagree that they used negative attributes when referring to obese children and only 35.25% agree that they referred to obese children using positive attributes. Finally, the role of formal education is discussed in helping change beliefs and improve student attitudes towards obesity.

Keywords Beliefs; attitudes; obesity; students; stigmatization