In the master’s thesis we analysed the attitude of 2nd and 3rd grade pupils’ towards sports lessons considering their body mass index.
In the theoretical part, we defined the importance of physical exercise, we primarily focused on the physical/sports activities of children and adolescents. We identified the influence of family, school, sports lessons and teachers on the physical/sports activities of children. We particularly focused on the physical/sports inactivity and the problem of growing overweight and obesity among children and adolescents. We studied the annually growing epidemic of overweight and obesity in the world and in Slovenia. We also stated the causes and consequences of this epidemic. We presented the calculation of the body mass index for the determination of overweight and obesity. We then described how physical/sports activity can contribute to weight loss and which types of exercise are suitable for overweight and obese children. In the final chapters, we also focused on the importance of motivation for physical/sports activity and on the correlation between the body image and physical/sports activity.
In the research within the empirical part participated 203 pupils, who attended 2nd and 3rd grades of primary school in the Coastal and Upper Carniola region during the school year 2016/2017. We wanted to know, if overweight and obese children like Sports lessons in school, what they like mostly about this school subject and what they like the least, what they would change regarding this school subject, how they feel during lessons, how often they engage in physical activities with the family and which sport they like the most.
The results showed that Sports lessons are popular among overweight and obese children. The elements of this school subject that pupils’ like the most are elementary games, more precisely the team game Dodgeball, but at least they like running.
Overweight and obese children, attending the 2nd grade, do not want any changes in terms of this school subject, while those, attending the 3rd grade, want less running.
The most frequent answers to the question, how they feel during Sports lessons, were that they feel lonely, fatigued, that their head, abdomen, hands or legs hurt or that they feel ashamed.
As much as 38.5% of obese pupils never engage in sports activities with their family and sometimes 15.4%, which is the lowest percentage of all the provided answers. 11.4% of overweight pupils never engage in sports activities with their family and sometimes 20 %. Higher percentages are present when it comes to physical exercise during the weekend (overweight – 31.1%; obese – 23.1) and everyday physical activities (overweight – 37.1%; obese – 23.1%). The most frequent physical/sports activity they are performing with their family is cycling.
Cycling is also the most popular type of sports among overweight and obese children. In addition, they highly like swimming, inline-skating and ball games.
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