Impact of gender on levels of physical activity in physical education

The main objective of this paper is to describe physical activity levels in physical education classes among primary schoolchildren and to observe differences between genders. For these purposes 42 students were selected (22 boys and 20 girls) (10,5 + 0,8 years of age; 40,5 + 8,3 kg of mass; 143,8 +/- 7,1 cm of heigth; 19,4 +/- 3,2 kg/m(2) of BMI). Their level of physical activity was assessed using a GT3X accelerometer (Actigraph, Pensacola, FL, USA) carried during five school days, attached at the right hip, with an epoch of 1s. Intensity was determined by cut-offs proposed by Evenson et al. (2008). The results show that students do moderate to vigorous intensity around 17% and 13% for boys and girls respectively. No significant differences were observed.