Representation of physical activity domains and sedentary behaviors across categories of gender and disability in children’s TV cartoons

Television (TV) cartoons could reflect and shape social values about children’s health-related behaviors. The main aim of this study is to analyze the portrayal of physical activity (PA) domains in the most popular Spanish children’s television (TV) cartoons. It is performed a content analysis of each scene following a coding scheme. The sample selected included the five most popular children’s TV cartoons for the 2013-2014 period in Spain. Our results show a large gap between the modest representation of different PA domains compared to the overwhelming depiction of sedentary behaviors. We do not find evidence of males and females participating equally in a variety of PA domains, and we fa…