Analisys facial emotional expressions in attendees the recreovía program in Bogotá - Colombia

Abstract

Abstract Background The Recreovía (PR) program promotes healthy habits and lifestyles through the practice of physical activity (PA) directed and musicalized in public spaces in Bogotá Colombia, with an average annual attendance of 800,000 participants. The objective of this study was to evaluate the changes in Emotional Facial Expression (EFE) during a PA session of the PR. The emotions evaluated were happiness, sadness, surprise, scare, disgust, and contempt, in addition, the neutral emotional state described by Ekman (1972). Methods Descriptive cross-sectional study, with 566 subjects aged 15 to 85 years (72.1% women and 27.9% men). The sample was estimated with a 95% confidence interval and a 5% margin of error. The facial expression analysis was performed with the FaceReader® facial recognition software and equipment. The data were analyzed through the techniques of Mann-Whitney U and Kruskal-Wallis with SPSS version 24 software. Results The age ranges were distributed as follows: 15-30 (22.8%), 31-45 (49.6%), 46-60 (26.9%) and 61-85 (0.7%). Users placed their emotions like this, neutral 47%, happiness 20%, sadness 7%, angry 6%, surprise 3%, scare 4%, disgust 8% and contempt 1%. The differences by gender were found, sadness (women 8%, men 5%, p = 0.007) and angry (women 5%, men 7%, p = 0.040). In the comparison by age, differences were found between 15-30 years and 46-60 years (neutral 35%, 47%, p = 0.000; happiness 27%, 13% p = 0.001; scare 2%, 6% p = 0.016). Conclusions Neutrality is an emotional state that does not show happiness or sadness, it is hypothesized that during this time the learning processes predominate. The most evoked emotion during the AF session was happiness followed by far by sadness, emotion related to the ambiguities of the movements in the process of learning motor gestures and happiness corresponds to the achievement in the execution that generates adherence to the program Recreovía that contributes to the mental and social health of the participants. Key messages Reduced levels of physical activity have a great impact on health. A sedentary lifestyle and emotional expressions is a more common risk factor that affects people's mental health. Mental disorders are a multifactorial condition that affects health, and in this case, physical activity for Bogotanos becomes a vehicle that transforms people's health and quality of life.