Revista de obesidad infantil Acceso abierto

Abstracto

Preventing Obesity in Adolescents: Media Literacy, Decision-Making and Critical Thinking Skills

Ozden Erdem

Abstract

Objective

To identify adolescents’ media literacy levels and their ability to make sound decisions and use critical thinking skills in the context of obesity prevention behaviors.

Design

Cross-sectional study

Setting

An elementary and a middle school in Ä°stanbul, Turkey.

Participants

Fourth, fifth and eighth-grade students (N=634).

Main Outcome Measures

Body Mass Index, the Media Literacy for Obesity

Prevention, and the Sound Decision-making and Critical

Thinking.

Analysis

Descriptive and chi-square analysis.

Results

The adolescents’ critical thinking skills mean score was 25.85±4.54. The Media Literacy mean score was 16.21±4.19. The decision-making skills mean score was 9.65±2.10. In the context of preventing obesity, a statistically significant difference was seen between Media Literacy behaviors in the context of obesity prevention and critical thinking skills (x2:175.99; p<0.05, 218.50; p<0.05, 233.72; p<0.05).

Conclusion

Adolescents have a low level of critical thinking skills in the context of obesity prevention. Their Media Literacy and decision-making skills are at a moderate level. The fact that the adolescents who had low levels of critical thinking skills with respect to obesity prevention constituted the majority suggests that these young people will be unable to prevent obesity going forward and may face the risk of developing obesity-related chronic illnesses.