Construcción de un instrumento para valorar la actitud a la obesidad en adolescentes Construction of an instrument to assess the attitude to obesity in adolescents

Objectives: a) To validate a scale of attitudes to obesity by teenagers, b) verify their ability for reproducibility c) propose scales for assessment according to age and sex. Subjects and methods: A descriptive study of survey type was conducted in 1252 adolescents between 12-17 years of three Municipal Facilities of the Province of Talca, Chile (584 males and 668 females). A survey was applied involving three indicators (factors): a) preference/ rejection, b) concern/disinterest) and c) will/apathy. Construct validity, internal consistency reliability (Cronbach) and scales were developed by the LMS method was evaluated. Results: Construct validity, after Varimax rotation showed 14 questions: a) preference /rejection (4 questions), b) concern/disinterest (6 questions) and c) will/apathy (4 questions). The variance for each factor was 23.5%, 41.0% and 24.1%, respectively totaling 88.6% of explanation. The reliability showed highly reliable values, ranging from 0.73 to 0.75 for each factor. The scales developed from the LMS method showed the following cutoffs points: p <10 is low attitude, ≥p10 to p90 moderate attitude, p90 to p97 high attitude and ≥p97 very high attitude to obesity. Conclusion: The results suggests that this method can be used and applied in the adolescent education system in the region of Maule, Chile, whose main purpose in making the diagnosis of possible predispositions toward obesity.