Attitudes and Values of Physical Education Professionals and Undergraduate Students about Their Role in Health Promotion

Abstract

Physical education (PE) is identified with health, with PE teachers and school PE regarded as legitimate instruments for health promotion. The PE teacher’s conceptions, attitudes, and values regarding the role of PE are inseparable from their performance. Thus, the objective of the present work is to verify concepts and attitudes of PE professionals and undergraduate students, in order to verify how they value their role in health promotion. This was a cross-sectional study that used surveys to assess attitudes and values of PE professionals and undergraduate students about their concepts of the role of PE in health promotion. A total of 942 PE professionals and undergraduate students regards themselves as players in health promotion (86.9%) despite no clear definition about the concept of health or the curriculum to attain such a goal, mainly based on academic training only. Also, they attribute the responsibility for childhood obesity and lack of motivation for the practice of physical activity to external factors, such as media (72.6%), family (84.7%), and technologies (83.1%). Despite participants regarding themselves as players in health promotion, there is a loose definition on how to promote health, and how to provide curriculum and strategies to meet the needs of public health.