Adolescents’ understanding of obesity: a qualitative study from rural South Africa

Figures & data

Table 1. Number and ages of participants in the FGD groups

	Mixed Sex FGD	All male FGD	All female FGD
Number of Participants	9 (5 girls, 4 boys)	12	10
Age range (in years)	14–18	16–19	15–19

Table 2. Guiding questions for the focus group discussions

Personal/Cognitive Factors Sometimes, people refer to others as ‘obese’. What do you understand by this? What are your thoughts and feelings about food? What are your thoughts and feelings about exercise? We are interested in factors that lead to people being light or heavy. What do you think are reasons that some people are heavy, and others are light? In your views, what do you think the best size and shape is for young people? And why? Behaviour What food do you eat? What food is eaten by the adolescents in your community? Would they be considered healthy or unhealthy? What exercises do you do? Environmental Factors

What are some of the things that you have heard or seen about obesity in young people?

What are some of the consequences of obesity that you have heard about? Do you think your chances of being overweight or obese is very high when parents and/or family are overweight and/or obese? Are there other factors? Closing/overall question: Thank you for your participation, lastly, what do you think can be done or what is your wish to happen to reduce obesity amongst adolescents?

Figure 1. Illustration of the three main factors of the social cognitive theory [16]

Sallis JF, Owen NFE. Social and Behavioral Theories. Heal Behav Heal Educ Theory, Res Pract. 2008;4th:465–486.

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