Obesity is a critical global public health issue. It leads to numerous health conditions that limit the quality
and length of life, placing a huge burden on healthcare systems around the world. Scholars believe
that the fight against obesity can be won only through multidisciplinary efforts. However, the literature
on people’s understanding of obesity is limited, perhaps because this topic does not attract the attention
of educators at the appropriate level. Although existing studies show that people lack understanding
about the mechanisms of obesity, most of the arguments in these papers suffer from a lack of theoretical
background and methodological problems. Therefore, we conceived the present study based on a sound
theory (conceptual change) in order to understand school students’ conceptual patterns regarding weight
gain, which is an important component of obesity knowledge. A written questionnaire probing the mechanism
of weight gain was distributed to 151 secondary school students in the Turkish part of Cyprus.
Content analysis was applied to students’ compositions. The results showed that students have six major
conceptual patterns about weight gain. They also hold a range of misconceptions and misunderstandings,
and sometimes have no conceptions. At the end of the paper, we discuss possible curricular and teaching
implications based on the patterns and incorrect knowledge structures.

• School Students’ Conceptual Patterns about Weight Gain: A preliminary study for biology teaching focusing on obesity

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