Gender Preference of Conceptions Toward Caloric-Balanced Living

Caloric unbalanced lifestyle has been documented as one critical reason for childhood obesity. Educating students with the knowledge about caloric-balanced living with a focus on healthy eating and physical activity may help raise their awareness to address obesity. Gender preference has limited the benefits of acquiring such knowledge for its impacts on the way for students to acquire knowledge. It is necessary, therefore, to identify the extent to which gender preference is associated with caloric-balanced living conceptions to enhance the literature about gender roles and to develop equitable interventions to promote healthful living.

The purpose of this study was to identify the influence of gender preference on high school students' caloric-balanced living conceptions, including naïve- and mis-conceptions and scientific conceptions.

This research adopted a mix-method design and recruited 72 students. A semi-structured interview was conducted with each student to acquire their conceptions toward caloric-balanced living. After coding their responses, we tallied the number of responses consistent with naïve- and mis-conceptions as well as the scientific conceptions. Then a χ2 analyses was conducted to determine the association between gender and naïve-, mis-, and scientific-conceptions, respectively.

Students possessed three types of naïve conception that were specified as power, eating, or exercising to represent caloric-balanced living and two types of misconceptions that were specified as an object and activity. Gender preference was identified in naïve conception; female students preferred to exclusively conceptualize caloric-balanced living as eating, while male students as exercising only. No gender preference was identified in misconceptions and the scientific conception.

This study is significant in that it revealed potential flaw of the physical education curriculum where the core science of kinesiology may not be taught systematically, and gender-related issues may not address appropriately. It advocates that teaching scientific conceptions should be given the priority in curriculum design and teaching practices to help students acquire scientific conceptions that subsequently develop a coherent knowledge system and behavior of caloric-balanced living.