Introduction:

Obesity and sedentary lifestyle are two of the public health issues that organizations like the OMS has been facing through policies and programs to impact the reduction of their prevalence. Child Development Centers are one of the modalities through which the national government promotes the holistic development of early childhood and where issues such as physical activity, sedentary lifestyle, overweight and obesity started to be problematized. The level of physical activity performed by this population in these Centers is unknown.

Methods:

Through a concurrent mixed methodology (quantitative-qualitative), this research as a cross-sectional, descriptive observational study of Multicentric nature was developed. The population analyzed was 324 boys and girls between 1.5 and 5 years of age, distributed in nursery, toddler, kindergarten, and pre-school groups, who belong to the CDI of Tokyo, San José and Otún. The observations were recorded in a journal which included the duration of the activities observed, as well as their characteristics on pedagogical, transit, and recreational areas. For the qualitative analysis, the methodology of content analysis was used, and for the quantitative the records, the sum and analysis of the time for physical activity.

Results:

The activities of low energy expenditure represented 445.5min observed in the Tokyo CDI, 447.9min in the CDI San José and 451.3 in the CDI Otún, while the activities of high energy expenditure (running and developing active games in the playground) were 34.5min in the Tokyo CDI, 32.1min in San Jose and 28.8 in Otun. The CDI Tokyo showed the longest exposure time in recreation field (160min) as well as the longest screen time (243min), compared to the Otun CDI (63min for each item, respectively).

Conclusion:

The longest times of permanence of children in CDI occur in the pedagogical area, they perform more activities that involve low energy expenditure, and the times used to perform vigorous activities are below the global recommendations for this population.

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