Overweight and obesity are excessive fat accumulations linked with many health problems, including heart diseases, type 2 diabetes and cancer. Multiple studies have demonstrated that beliefs about overweight, obesity and self-efficacy play essential roles in the success of interventions for obesity management.
This study aimed to identify the perceptions of university students of overweight and obesity using the health belief model (HBM) and to analyse their association with the body mass index (BMI) categories of the students.
A cross-sectional questionnaire-based study and a multistage sampling technique were used to ensure the recruitment of students from selected colleges of Jazan University—Saudi Arabia.
Six colleges of Jazan University were randomly selected to ensure equal representation of health sciences, sciences and humanities colleges.
A total of 579 students completed an online survey between January and April 2023.
The primary outcome measures were demographic characteristics and HBM constructs. Secondary outcome measures were behavioural intentions relating to obesity management.
This study demonstrated that gender and self-reported family history of obesity were significantly correlated with the BMI categories of the students (p <0.001). Students in the underweight category showed the highest mean score for perceived severity (3.62 ±0.08). Perceived self-efficacy in exercise and diet was significantly associated with BMI categories, with adjusted ORs of 2.82 (2.10 to 3.79) and 1.51 (1.09 to 2.09), respectively. Perceived barriers to healthy eating and regular physical activity were significantly related to the behavioural intentions of obesity management. Multivariate logistic regression showed that perceived severity, perceived cues to action, perceived barriers and self-efficacy in dieting and exercise were significant predictors of behavioural intentions for the management of obesity.
This study underscores the need for tailored health promotion strategies that consider the perceptions and beliefs of people about the management of obesity.