Psychosocial implications of the infantile obesity into the motor behaviour of scholars

Abstract

The present descriptive study has the goal to investigate the psychosocial implications of infantile obesity in children from 8 to 10 years old inserted in Physical Education classes context, in a private learning institution. The population was distributed in 121 children of both sexes. It was used as instrument the antropometric measure of weight and height where it was obtained the body mass index (BMI); the sociometry an the observations on the children behaviour during Physical Education classes. The data collecting was made individually (BMI) and collectively (filming). In order to analyse data it was used the descriptive analysis and the content analysis. The results showed that in the group of children, 61,15% presented a normal BMI, 20,66% overweight and 18,18%, obese ones; in the sociometry of the groups, it was noticed that the group of overweight and obese children presented higher percentage of choice in the motor criteria than in the affective criteria; the preference of social acceptance was higher in the children who presented a normal BMI of 70,24% and 66,94% (motor); referred to the observation of the behaviour presented by overweight and obese children during classes of Physical Education, it was noticed that they presented regularly expected behaviours to their age, except the occurrence of tiredness and some cases of solitude, which affected the social development of the children. Then, it was concluded that, obesity brought troubles, which influenced the context in classes of Physical Education to those children who presented retraction, seclusion and low self-esteem, as well as, when the social environment was proper to receive, with no distinction, obese children who showed interest in participating into the activities in the social context of the class.