Actividad física en escolares chilenos normales y de talla baja

Abstract

Physical acivity was evoluated in 70 male and female Chilean school children aged 7 to 9 years. Normol and low height for ags children were studied. Information from each individual was gathered by recall interview and activity diary by the factorial metion or tichnique. Daily time distribution for different physical activities was obtained for a week day and a weekend. A trained observer recorded physical activities performed by each child along a 20 minutes breck in school duties. Most acrivities were of sedentary type. A striking finding was the time spent en sdentory activities such as sleeping and lyng down (11.5 ±1.1 to 12.0 ± 1.4 nous in normal and small for height boys and 11.9 ± 1.2 to 12.2 ± 1.6 hours in normal and small for height girls). Both boys and girls spent an average 3 hours a day watching TV on school days and 4 hours or more on weekends. No significant differences in time distribution of different physical activities were found between normal and short stature children. Direct observation showed that normal boys spend significantly larger proportion of their time (29.6%) in moderate and heavy activities than short boys and girls and than normal girls (p < 0.05). Small for age children encage less time high expenditure activities than normal children, Thus, in general these children school children showed sedentary life styles, with minimal physical activity and they devoted 30% of their daily time to watch TV.