Formação de laços afetivos, primeiros contatos em um acampamento para reeducação alimentar : um estudo com crianças com obesidade

Emotional ties are a consequence of social interactions and it is through these bonds that friendship is built. This way, this research sought to identify factors that influence the emotional bonds in a first contact in overweight and obese children. To get the aim of the research it was necessary to: (1) evaluate the children’s social abilities; (2) control the level of interaction among the children; (3) control the kind of interaction among the children (4) map the formation of friendship nets after a period of companionship; (5) relate the measures of net to the children’s social abilities; (6) relate the degree and the kind of interaction to the net measures. Twenty-four (24) overweight children between 8 to 11years old participated in the camping. The tools used correspond to the observing protocol to check the occurrence of verbal, physical or verbal/physical behaviors; to the net questionnaire adapted to raise the characteristics about friendship nets and to the Multimedia Social Abilities to Children Inventory for the self-evaluation of the child’s social repertory. As a general procedure, the children were separated into six groups at a random selection and it was made sure that they did not know each other neither had had any kind of contact prior to the beginning of the camping. The results showed that the collective activities influence in the formation of reciprocal bonds. Relations between the social abilities and the measures centered in the actors were not found.