Introduction:

Educational institutions are sites of cultural and social wealth which favor the adoption of lifestyles such as physical activity (PA). Teachers have an approach to PA that must be recognized since it plays a key role in the process of acquiring habits.

Objective:

To describe the social representations of PA that teachers of cycles I and II of public schools in the locality Los Mártires in Bogotá have, and to set the conditions for its practice.

Materials and methods:

Exploratory, descriptive and qualitative study including 48 teachers, randomly distributed. Through focus groups, teachers were asked about the representations of PA and the conditions for its practice. The information was processed by triangulation, using discourse analysis.

Results:

Most participants defined PA from a biological perspective. Conditions, limitations related to the safety of the environment, institutional policies and attitudes of teachers were highlighted. Attitude was perceived as a limitation or a facilitator depending on the case.

Conclusions:

In the concept of PA, there is no difference between exercise, sport, recreation or game; its importance to school children is highlighted because human development is favored when performing PA. However, in some cases, only a PA professional can promote it since few teachers include it in their classes.

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