The Feeling of Pleasure for Overweight Children during Different Types of Physical Activity

Abstract

The feeling of pleasure during physical education (PE) could increase with physical activity participation and adherence for overweight children. While traditional games are known to have positive benefits on motor skill development, especially for children with poorer motor skills, and on the body mass of children, little is known about overweight children’s feelings of enjoyment when playing these games. To identify a program of physical activity appreciated by overweight children, we tested the effect of different activities, namely soccer (SO), shot put (SP), and traditional motor games (TMGs), on the feelings of pleasure for 28 overweight male children (aged 12.11 ± 0.63 years, BMI 26.89 ± 0.15 kg·m−2) participating in a 3-month cross-over study. To measure affective responses to exercises, we applied a validated feeling scale. The data were collected during eight PE lessons, which were organized for each cycle taught. Post hoc pairwise comparisons revealed a significant difference (Z = −3.195, p < 0.01) between the mean feeling score reported after the SO cycle (2.48 ± 0.41) and that after the TMGs (3.04 ± 0.32). A similar significant difference (Z = −3.304, p < 0.01) was found between the mean feeling scores reported after the SP cycle (2.27 ± 0.32) and the TMGs (3.04 ± 0.32). There was no significant difference between the mean feeling scores reported after the SO (2.48 ± 0.41) and SP cycles (2.27 ± 0.32). In conclusion, the findings of the present study suggest that TMGs may have beneficial effects on the feelings of pleasure for overweight children. Therefore, TMGs might potentially be considered as an alternative to conventional physical activities.

Relación entre el índice de masa corporal y las preferencias de interacción social en las clases de Educación Física en estudiantes de Educación Secundaria por sexos (Relationship between body mass index and social interaction preferences in Physical Education classes among secondary school students by gender)

“…Estos resultados pueden estar mediados por factores relacionados con los estigmas provenientes de compañeros, profesorado y familiares (Nutter et al, 2019;Stojadinovic et al, 2018), entre los que destacan problemas para la construcción de su esquema corporal (González & Ortega, 2013), valores más bajos de competencia motriz (Gil et al, 2020), menor gusto por la asignatura de EF (Cañadas et al, 2014), menor autoestima (Estévez et al, 2015;Ortega-Becerra et al, 2015), mayor depresión (Ahn et al, 2020) y puntuaciones más altas en desmotivación y regulación de la actividad física (Hwang y Kim, 2011). Además, es muy posible que las actividades de corte competitivo e individualista pongan a adolescentes con exceso de peso en riesgo de desaprobación por parte de compañeros (Hawani et al, 2023). Esta misma relación, estudiada por sexos, arroja resultados muy parecidos pero sólo en el grupo de las chicas, no existiendo ninguna relación en ninguno de los cuatro factores del GR-SIPPEL con el IMC en el grupo masculino.…”

“…Concluyeron que el uso de estrategias de inclusión social es crucial para establecer una cultura en la educación física que permita a los estudiantes participar con éxito en actividades diferenciadas de habilidad y condición física, sin temor a la exclusión social, burlas basadas en el peso o suposiciones negativas sobre sus capacidades. Hawani et al (2023), comentan que actividades convencionales como el fútbol o el lanzamiento de peso pueden ser exigentes y no resultar atractivas para personas con sobrepeso; estas actividades convencionales son menos interactivas y autónomas para alumnado este alumnado en EF, y pueden poner a niños con exceso de peso en riesgo de desaprobación por parte de compañeros. Cuadra-Martínez et al ( 2012), en una investigación sobre la representación del deporte y la EF en estudiantes de enseñanza básica y media obesos en Chile, identificaron factores facilitadores, como una convivencia democrática y no discriminatoria, y barreras, como el temor a problemas de salud y una convivencia discriminatoria.…”

The impact of adapted exercises in basketball on the perception of the difficulty and physical enjoyment of students with overweight

“…Some studies showed that intrinsic motivation, satisfaction, and physical enjoyment improved physical performance [ 30 , 31 ]. Physical enjoyment can also be described as an affective and emotional reaction to a physical education session that could generate a certain satisfaction, pleasure self-confidence, and more satisfactory emotion management during physical education and sport, in children and adolescents with and without disability [ [25] , [32] , [33] , [34] ].…”

Enhancing Skills, Mood, and Performance in Overweight Handball Players: Exploring Individual vs. Collective Verbal Encouragement Strategies

“…Furthermore, the studies by Hawani et al [9] and McWhorter et al [10] highlight the broader implications of verbal encouragement for promoting physical activity and improving psychophysiological outcomes among overweight students. These findings suggest that verbal cues may serve as a powerful tool for addressing the complex interplay of psychological and physiological factors that contribute to obesity-related health disparities.…”