La representación de la actividad física y los comportamientos sedentarios en las imágenes de libros de texto españoles del segundo ciclo de educación infantil

Abstract

The prevalence of overweight and obesity in preschoolers (up to 6 years old) has been increasing steadily across the world in recent decades. Early childhood education, and in particular the second cycle (from three to six years old) is a critical period in the development of a healthy lifestyle that should particularly include physical activity. In Spain, central government policies have promoted the idea that the school should become an advocate of physical activity in order to promote and make available resources offering maximum opportunities for healthy practices at school and outside school hours. Taking into account that textbooks develop the school curriculum, the present study resorts to the content analysis technique in order to evaluate the representation of physical activity through the images of Spanish early childhood education textbooks published after the Spanish Education Act (2006). Textbooks images reproduce high levels of sedentary behavior in children and do not promote healthy physical activity patterns. It is necessary to investigate whether textbooks, and especially those messages related to the lack of promotion of physical activity, are potential correlates that could account for the high levels of obesity and the sedentary lifestyle of Spanish children.