Disfrute, autoeficacia y nivel de actividad física de niños de Honduras y Costa Rica

The aim of the study was to compare the levels of enjoyment of physical activity, the perceived level of habitual activity and the self-efficacy for the activity, among school boys and girls from Honduras and Costa Rica, during the pandemic due to the COVID-19 disease. Participants: 75 school children from Honduras (37 girls and 13 boys) and Costa Rica (11 girls and 14 boys), aged between 7-8 years. They completed online inventories to measure enjoyment, self-efficacy and level of physical activity. Results: barely a third of the students in both countries would be classified as very active. Girls from both countries presented a predominance of inactive or active cases and a lower percentage of very active cases. In contrast, boys from Costa Rica showed a predominance of low-active cases, while those from Honduras had a predominance of very active cases. In addition, the majority of the school children sample in both countries indicated that they did not participate in physical-sports activities organized outside the school context, but those who had the opportunity to do so, mainly did so only one or two days a week and in sessions of less than 30 minutes. Also as results, no relationship was found between the level of physical activity of the students and the degree of enjoyment or self-efficacy for the activity. There were also no differences in these variables, between boys and girls or between countries, except for enjoyment, which was higher in the Costa Rican school sample. Conclusions: inactive school children prevailed in general. The level of physical activity in this sample depends on gender and country of origin, but is not explained by the degree of self-efficacy or enjoyment of the activity, in contrast to previous studies. The restrictions derived from the COVID-19 pandemic could partly explain the low levels of physical activity reported by the school children sample. El objetivo del estudio fue comparar los niveles de disfrute de la actividad física, el nivel percibido de actividad habitual y la autoeficacia para la actividad, entre niños y niñas escolares de Honduras y Costa Rica, en tiempos de pandemia por la enfermedad de COVID-19. Participaron 75 escolares de Honduras (37 niñas y 13 niños) y Costa Rica (11 niñas y 14 niños), con edades entre los 7-8 años, se aplicaron 3 instrumentos: disfrute, autoeficacia y nivel de actividad física por medio de la virtualidad. Entre los resultados obtenidos, apenas un tercio del estudiantado de ambos