Abstract

VICIANA, Jesús; MARTINEZ-BAENA, Alejandro  and  MAYORGA-VEGA, Daniel. Contribution of physical education to daily recommendations of physical activity in adolescents according to gender: a study with accelerometry. Nutr. Hosp. [online]. 2015, vol.32, n.3, pp.1246-1251. ISSN 1699-5198.  https://dx.doi.org/10.3305/nh.2015.32.3.9363.

Introduction: the institutionalization of school as a feasible context for the increment of healthy physical activity (PA), the disparity of results in the international context, and the scarcity of Spanish studies with objective measurements in Physical Education (PE), make further investigations in this research line necessary. Objectives: the objectives were to determine objective levels of PA during PE classes in adolescents, to verify the contribution of PE to daily PA recommendations, and to identify possible differences of PA levels according to gender. Methods: a sample composed of 394 schoolchildren (211 male and 183 female), from 13 to 16 years old, participated in this study. The PA was estimated through an objective measurement (accelerometer GT3X), registering two complete hours of PE classes. Only those participants who accomplished the minimum criteria were selected for the analyses (n = 231). Results: the results showed that the time of practice in PE classes were not accomplished. The gender variable influenced significantly on the motor engagement time and the steps/min, as well as the indices of moderate-vigorous PA and the sedentary time in the studied adolescents (p < 0.05). Conclusions: PE has a scarce contribution to daily moderate-vigorous PA (almost a third in boys and a fourth in girls) and the daily steps reccomendations (fifth part in boys/girls), limited by its weekly duration and frequency. Incrementing PE in the current educational system could help to achieve these desirable standards.

Keywords : Healthy physical activity; Moderate-to-vigorous physical activity; Accelerometer; Sedentarism; Steps.

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