“I Like to Jump on My Trampoline”: An Analysis of Drawings From 8- to 12-Year-Old Children Beginning a Weight-Management Program

Abstract

The main objective of this exploratory study was to assess children's perceptions of their activity choices as they began a weight-management program for overweight children and their families. During pretesting of a 10-week weight-management program, participating children were asked to draw pictures of themselves doing something. The drawings of 35 children, ages 8 to 12, were qualitatively analyzed. The analysis focused on (a) the type of activities (i.e., physical or sedentary) children chose to convey, (b) the specific focus of the activities described, (c) the children's future activity choices, and (d) the children's responses to the activities they drew. Seventy-one percent of the participating children drew themselves engaged in a physical activity. These results are notable and suggest positive perceptions of physical activities. Children's views related to their activity choices might play a role in designing weight-management programs that successfully increase children's adherence to long-term physical activity.

Researching children's health experiences: The place for participatory, child‐centered, arts‐based approaches

“…In Kalvaitis and Monhardt's (2011) study of children's relationship with nature, for example, children were asked to draw pictures of themselves doing something outside and then to write about their drawing and their relationship with nature. Drawings are often used when researchers are working with young children, although they can be successfully used with older children, as in Walker, Caine‐Bish, and Wait's (2009) study of children (aged 8–12 years) commencing a weight management program who drew pictures of the physical activities they engaged in.…”

“…What is viewed as a participatory tool may not be either fun or appropriate for all children, and it may even exclude children who are unable to use drawing materials. Furthermore, while data collection techniques such as draw and write may produce visually stimulating and engaging drawings, researchers often rely more heavily on the words as the basis for analysis and interpretation, as “[d]rawings alone are not enough to capture children's perceptions” (Walker et al, 2009, p. 908).…”

Greek adolescents' views of people with mental illness through drawings: mental health education's impact

“…Furthermore, we described the outcomes of an educational mental health intervention using pupils' drawings. Drawings were selected as the data collection method due to the age of the participants in this study, based on earlier studies using them with children (Poster et al ., ; Slusarska et al ., ; Pelander et al ., ; Walker et al ., ).…”

Use of Drawings to Explore U.S. Women's Perspectives on Why People Might Decline HIV Testing

“…Other recent examples of studies that used drawings as data to reveal views and experiences with health-related conditions include reports of university students' and children's perceptions of their headaches (Broadbent, Niederhoffer, Hague, Corter, & Reynolds, 2009; Wojaczyriska-Stanek, Koprowski, Wrobel, & Gola, 2008), patients' perceptions of living with systemic lupus erythematosus (Nowicka-Sauer, 2007), women's portrayals of the physical changes accompanying menopause (Guillemin, 2004), and overweight children's perceptions of physical activity (Walker, Caine-Bish & Wait, 2009). This method has also been employed to document respondents' attitudes and understanding about communicable diseases.…”