LEVEL OF PHYSICAL ACTIVITY IN BASIC EDUCATION TEACHERS EVALUATED BY TWO INSTRUMENTS

Cardiovascular diseases are the main causes of national death, and sedentary is an important risk factor in this degenerative process. To evaluate the level of physical activity (LPA) of teachers in the public school system of Viçosa MG by means of two distinct instruments and the agreement obtained between them. A total of 200 teachers of both genders, aged between 25 and 68, participated in this research. LPA was measured by the International Physical Activity Questionnaire (IPAQ) and through the use of a pedometer. The calculations of the prevalence of active and non-physically active individuals were performed, and the Kappa (K) index was subsequently used to establish agreement between the instruments. All analyzes were performed in MedCalc software, version 14. 10. 2 and SPSS, version 20. For the IPAQ, 70% of teachers reached adequate levels of physical activity (LPA), while by the pedometer only 26.5%. The agreement between the five categories of the pedometer and the IPAQ was not significant, as well as in the classification in active and non-active, between the instruments. In conclusion evaluating the LPA through the IPAQ it was possible to perceive that the majority of the teachers were classified as active. However, when considering the threshold of 10000 steps/day of average, using the pedometer as an instrument of evaluation of the NAF, the majority of the group cannot be considered active. In addition, there was no agreement between the instruments for the evaluation of NAF.