Physical activity and nutritional habits of teenagers from three public schools in Florianópolis/SC

Abstract

The objective of this study was to investigate the dietary habits and physical activity of adolescents aged 16 to 17 years from public schools in Florianópolis, SC. The sample consisted of 720 students, including 252 boys and 468 girls. Two questionnaires were applied, which were sent to the students and their parents. Descriptive statistics mean and standard deviation) was used for data analysis and differences between groups were analyzed by the chi-square test, with a 95% confidence interval. Among the adolescents studied, 69.1% participated regularly in physical education at school, whereas 59.6% did not perform any physical activity outside of school. Among the adolescents who performed organized physical activity outside of school (40.4%), 55.9% were boys and 35.1% were girls, and most of them (61.6%) performed physical activity three times per week. With respect to physical activity level, most students (48.3%) were classified as active at the intermediate level and 30.6% were classified as active, with a higher proportion of boys (43.6%) than girls (23.5%). In addition, 54.5% of the students watched TV for more than 3 h/day. Regarding dietary habits, 55.4% of the adolescents presented a healthy diet according to the parameters used in this study, with a higher proportion of boys (61.5%) than girls (51.9%). Boys consumed more milk than girls who, in turn, reported a higher consumption of candy compared to boys. In general, most of the adolescents presented positive health behaviors such as good physical activity and dietary habits.