Actividad Física Moderada a Vigorosa en Educación Física

Abstract

This doctoral thesis, entitled moderate to vigorous physical activity in physical education, aimed to study the relationship of different factors related to sedentary lifestyle and childhood obesity in the Mexican school context. These public health problems can be tackled from basic education, taking as an opportunity the time devoted to recess and physical education during the school day, where teachers through a program oriented to learn and apply pedagogical strategies that promote moderate to vigorous physical activity, and help to improve maximum oxygen consumption and decrease body fat in students. In the study, the methodology was with cross-sectional and quasi-experimental designs, with quantitative cohort. This research led to a theoretical and methodological review of the intensity of the physical effort of schoolchildren in basic education in the Mexican context through physical education and recreation. The intensity of physical activity was evaluated using different instruments such as the system to observe the physical activity instruction time (SOFIT), heart rate, accelerometers and the perception of physical exertion. Critical quantitative aspects of a planning and execution of a physical education class were identified, where in general the activities and own tasks achieved a moderate to vigorous physical activity index less than 50% of the duration of the class and higher during the time of playtime. On the other hand, the results showed lower values of intensity of physical activity in female and / or overweight and obese students. Among the most outstanding results, we can mention the usefulness of the training program aimed at improving the index of moderate to vigorous physical activity in physical education teachers during their undergraduate phase in physical activity and sport, and later in their professional work as teachers of physical education in basic education. In this sense, another outstanding result was the evaluation of the effect of a physical activity program with moderate to vigorous intensity under the CATCH model (coordinated advance for the health of children by its acronym in English) with didactic sequences given by the teacher, where at least half of the physical education class the student remained at least 50% of the duration of the class with moderate to vigorous physical activity; showing its effectiveness through the variables of percentage of body fat and aerobic capacity in children who are overweight or obese and finding significant differences in the variables studied after 10 months of intervention, contributing to the students' health. Once the training program was designed and implemented, its effectiveness was proven to increase the intensity of physical activity from moderate to vigorous in physical education classes. It is this line, it is expected that the results of this research will serve the teacher to adapt or implement didactic and pedagogical strategies in the classes that contribute to achieve the recommendation established by the World Health Organization (WHO) regarding the amount and intensity of Physical activity for children and youth.