Relationship Between the Level of Physical Activity and the Body Dissatisfaction of Students

The study aimed to investigate the relationship between the level of physical activity and body dissatisfaction in high school students. This is a study of a quantitative, cross-sectional, exploratory approach to data analysis, carried out with 260 female and male adolescents aged 15 to 18 years old from a public school, located in downtown Teresina- PI. As instruments of data collection, a Body Dissatisfaction Assessment Questionnaire for Adolescents was used, developed by Guillén et al. (2003), the Habitual Physical Activities Questionnaire, originally developed by Russel R. Pate, translated and modified by Nahas (2003). He indicated that there is a higher prevalence of students classified as moderately active (31.5%) followed by the less active (30.8%). As for the level of physical activity, the girls had a percentage of 37.7%, classified as not very active, and 28.3% as inactive, the boys obtained a classification with a percentage of 39.3% moderately active followed by the very active with 27, 9%. The sample identified that the female gender had a higher prevalence in relation to the level of body dissatisfaction21.81%. Finally, a negative correlation (p <0.5) was observed between the level of physical activity and body dissatisfaction among adolescents. It is concluded that there were significant results on the level of physical activity and dissatisfaction with the body image of the adolescents, showing the correlation between the factors and the importance of further studies related to the theme.