Actividad física y salud en niños de 3 a 5 años Physical activity and health in children aged 3 to 5 years old Atividade física e saúde em crianças dos 3 aos 5 anos.

João, Barbosa; Ferreira-Barbosa, Helena; Loureiro, Vânia

Several studies have been conducted in order to understand the habits of children regarding physical activity (PA), sedentary behavior (SB), and sleep time (ST). The aim of this study was to characterize the habits of programmed physical activity, sedentary behavior and sleep time of children from 3 to 5 years old from the city of Beja, Portugal. This is an exploratory study with a cross-sectional descriptive design and a sample of 49 children (3 years: n=26, 53.1%; 4 years: n= 8, 16.3%; 5 years: n=15.30.6%). Informed consent was obtained by their parents/guardians. For data collection, the Inquérito Alimentar Nacional e de Atividade Física (National Food and Physical Activity Survey) (Lopes et al., 2017) was used. For the SB and ST analysis, the Canadian 24-Hour Movement Guidelines for 0-4 years were considered (Tremblay et al., 2017). SPSS 28.0 software was used for data processing. The analysis of the results showed that 69.4% (n=34) of the children had normal weight. Regarding the active behaviors, it was found that on average the children are below the recommendations for PA, min/day, and less than half of children practice SA (34.7%, n=17). Regarding the SB, it was found that the time spent on this behavior increases with increasing age. In ST, it was verified that children with 4 years old have ST below the ideal. Despite most children presenting normal weight, it was found that most of them not only do not meet the recommendations for PA practice, as the recommendations for ST and spend too much time in SB.

SEDENTARY behavior; SLEEP; PHYSICAL activity; HISTORIC districts; SEDENTARY lifestyles

Cuadernos de Psicología del Deporte, 2024, Vol 24, Issue 3, p242

1578-8423

Academic Journal

10.6018/cpd.529061