A Study on the Perception of Obesity by Age and the Attitude toward Weight Control

Abstract

Along with the increasing interests of modem-day society toward topics of health and beauty, various studies are being actively conducted on the effects of diet for obesity prevention, and separate from aspects of disease prevention and health promotion. This study aimed to examine individual perceptions of obesity by age, and to prepare basic data for implementing an age-based weight control system, by comparing attitudes toward weight control. The research and analysis were conducted using questionnaires, provided to high school students(teenagers, 189 students), college students(20 or older, 116 students), and adults(30 or over, 88 adults) living in Daegu City. In terms of the respondents' perceptions of obesity, among those who described themselves as overweight, only about 10% were actually proven to be overweight. Also, significantly more female students than male students perceived themselves as overweight, despite the fact that they were in a normal weight range(p