Emotional States and Level of Physical Activity at the General José María Córdova Military School Estados Emocionales y Nivel de Actividad Física en la Escuela Militar General José María Córdova

Abstract

Introduction: the integral projection of the military requires that skills, aptitudes,competencies, physical and psychological conditions, among others, be taken into account in order to guarantee a good operational performance. This is why it is important to study, from the field of human body movement, aspects such as the emotional states and the physical performance of those who prepare for military life. Objective : to analyze the emotional states (anxiety / depression) and the level of physical activity, and its possible relationships, of the students of the Military School who present normal body weight and who are overweight. Methodology : a  quantitative, descriptive, and analytical component study was conducted, with which 76 male and female students were assessed. The characteristics of the population indicate that their average age is 19.0 ± 1.7 years, the size  evidences values over 1.70 ± 3.2 cm., The weight has values of 74.50 ± 2.1 kg., and, according to the classification for the Body Mass Index (BMI), a result of 25.90 ± 0.50 Kg / m2 is shown. Results: in the variable of emotional states, the anxiety-state revealed a median of 29.57%; in the case of depression, the predominant category in the sample was minimal depression; In the level of physical activity, the vigorous component stands out with values of 7,200 MET-minute / week, according to the criteria of the IPAQ. Conclusion : a correlation between anxiety-state and trait anxiety was found (r2= 0.52). When applying nonparametric tests,it was possible to establish that the higher the category of depression, the higher the anxiety-state score, in the sample studied p <0.05. As for the comparison between the variables of emotional states and those of physical activity of the study, initially the variable of vigorous physical activity, compared with the categories of depression, seemed to reflect some important difference; however, when performing nonparametric tests, it was observed that all MET variables were statistically equal for the depression categories. This indicates that there is no influence between these and the level of physical activity; it is not related to the degree of depression that is experienced.