Intensidad de la actividad física realizada durante el recreo por estudiantes de un centro público de educacón primaria de la Región de Murcia

Abstract

According to the latest reports from the World Health Organization, the increase in the percentage of children with overweight and obesity is considered a problem and even a global health epidemic of the 21st century. In this sense, the prevention of overweight and obesity must be addressed as a challenge from various fields, among which the educational community has a leading role. Schools can intervene in teaching and promoting good eating habits and practicing healthy physical activity. However, the current education law, Organic Law 8/2013 for the Improvement of Educational Quality (LOMCE), offers the Physical Education area only two weekly sessions of 60 minutes. This time is not only insufficient to reach the recommendations for health that the research marks us, but also forces us to promote new methodologies that allow for greater real motor practice by students. In this situation, the need arises to look for other moments in which to promote physical activity in a healthy way within the school. Therefore, recent studies highlight school recess as an ideal time to promote physical activity among schoolchildren following the recommendations for health. The way of structuring recess, the organization of activities, the materials or equipment used, among other variables, have a direct influence on the levels of physical activity of schoolchildren. For all these reasons, the objectives that are planned in this research work are focused on describing and analyzing the levels of physical activity of boys and girls during different types of recesses, taking as reference their participation during this time through the values of heart rate, MVPA and level of participation through observation made with iSOPARC. On the other hand, in terms of the research design, this is a descriptive, comparative and correlational non-experimental quantitative type. The sample was made up of a total of 39 students from 4th to 6th grade of Primary Education (9 to 12 years old), from a public educational school in the Region of Murcia. Tools used for data collection and analysis include Polar Team 2, iSOPARC, and SPSS. Results on the descriptive values of heart rate are of an average of 130.64 ± 18.03 ppm, average time in MVPA is 14.41 ± 7.72 minutes and the percentage of recess time in average values of MVPA is 49.97 ± 25.62%, for the entire sample, without differentiating by gender or type of recreation. Regarding gender, boys achieve 60.74 ± 23.89% of recess time in MVPA values, while girls obtain 41.36 ± 23.67% of MVPA. Following the data found through iSOPARC, the percentage of sedentary schoolchildren is 16.15%, in walking intensity values it is 39.62% and in vigorous intensity it is 44.23%. Regarding the difference by gender, girls achieve higher values than boys in sedentary and walking intensity, while boys exceed the percentage of vigorous intensity of 49.15 ± 17.84% compared to 39.32 ± 16.49% in girls. Finally, as conclusions we highlight that during recess time boys were more active than girls, there being significant differences between them according to the measures of heart rate and MVPA. Girls are more sedentary at all breaks except when music is used. There are differences in the levels of physical activity of boys and girls according to the types of recesses proposed. The results achieved in this research will help teachers and educational centers to plan active and healthy recesses, which comply with the official recommendations for the practice of physical activity. KEY WORDS Recess, physical activity, Physical Education, Primary Education, MVPA.