Estudio de la influencia de las características urbano-arquitectónicas de los espacios públicos recreativos en los niveles de actividad física de los niños y niñas en la ciudad de Cuenca-Ecuador

Abstract

In the last four decades worldwide, the level of overweight and obesity in children has increased, which can cause their death. Physical activity is crucial for energy expenditure, but physical inactivity in children has increased in the same way. The public park is a free outdoor space, so it is essential to know your contribution to the community. The current work aims to propose design criteria that promote physical activity equally for girls and boys within these parks. To establish the design criteria, a direct observation protocol was generated, based on the methodology for the Observation of Physical and Recreational Activities in Public Parks (SOPARC). SOPARC is a tool that records the number of children and their levels of physical activity within the areas that make up the public park. This methodology complied with cultural adaptation and field validation through the inter-observer reliability evaluation method, which assesses the ability to provide similar evaluations regardless of the observer who uses it, and thus obtained a methodology for the city of Cuenca-Ecuador.