Elements to formulate a healthy educational proposal in food and physical activity, from the perspective of school children in Medellín

Abstract

ABSTRACT: Background: The global problem of childhood obesity is growing and occupies the first lines in health agendas. In Colombia, the National Survey of Nutrition Situation (ENSIN, 2015), shows an increase in excess weight in schoolchildren. In Medellín, a survey on sports and recreational habits and preferences (by INDER, 2017) describes that although children and adolescents maintain an adequate weight, an increasing tendency to becoming overweight and a propensity to sedentary behavior is identified; 8% of schoolchildren aged 6 to 10 declare that they practice sports, recreational or physical activity, while only 3% between the ages of 11 and 14 do so. Objective: To identify the favoring factors and the barriers to assume a healthy lifestyle in relation to food and physical activity. Methods: The research is carried out in an EI -Educational Institution- with a sample of 363 schoolchildren between 8 and 12 years old (52.1% men and 47.9% women), with whom four focus groups are formed, two with schoolchildren with overweight and two without. Results: Based on the codification in Atlas ti, three categories, and primary codes are identified, centered on (1) Meanings and practices; from their analysis family and personal knowledge and actions about food, health, obesity, healthy lifestyles, physical activity, habits, beliefs, and factors that favor weight excess are derived; (2) the internal and external context to the IE; actions or situations that take place in the restaurant or school cafeteria, as well as outside school, and in their households; impacting the lifestyles of schoolchildren and (3) the looming solution strategies, that can be advanced to properly influence a healthy lifestyle in schoolchildren. Conclusions: the preventive approach to childhood obesity to prevent in turn, ECNT from an ecosocial perspective, involves not only the microsystem of the schoolchild but also the macro, the exosystem, to generate relevant proposals.