Addressing Child Obesity via Social Networks: Experience Report of Actions of the Healthy Lifestyle Project at School in the Covid-19 Pandemic

Abstract

Childhood obesity is a nutritional disorder considered a serious public health problem worldwide because it is responsible for a large part of the emergence of chronicdegenerative diseases and, consequently, raises the levels of morbidity and mortality. The beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic contributed to the increase in the rates of this comorbidity, as the established transmission containment measures led to a reduction in physical activity, an increase in screen time and anxiety-related disorders. Thus, the Healthy Lifestyle at School extension project, developed at the Faculty of Medicine of the Federal University of Cariri (UFCA), whose objective is to act in the identification, prevention and treatment of overweight and obesity in children and adolescents, recognized the need adapting face-to-face activities to the remote context. An account was created on the social network Instagram in order to alert about the problem and with the objective of reaching the target audience through educational, preventive and control measures against childhood obesity. The study is a qualitative analysis, of the experience report type, based on data obtained between April and September of the year 2020 on the Project's social media page. It can be seen from this study that the challenge for extension projects to remain as guides for good health practices and remote knowledge production showed satisfactory results with the use of the social network as a tool for health promotion and education.