Influencia de la expresión corporal en la Educación Física para el desarrollo emocional de los adolescentes. Una revisión sistemática

The rapid social, cultural, and technological changes are impacting personal development, particularly in adolescents who undergo transformations without enough time to assimilate them. Emotions, and their understanding and regulation, play a crucial role during this stage. Physical education—particularly content related to body expression—offers a promising avenue for integrating emotional education into the classroom. The aim of this study was to conduct a systematic review of the literature on this topic from 2019 to October 2025, including both theoretical and practical studies involving secondary school students. The PRISMA guidelines were applied, using search terms such as “body expression,” “physical education,” “emotions,” “adolescents,” “emotional development,” “body language,” and “high school.” The search was conducted across multidisciplinary databases (SCOPUS, WOS), education-specific databases (Education Resources Information Centre, Education Database, Education Research Complete, and Teacher Reference Centre), sociology databases (Social Science Database, Social Abstracts, Sociology Database), and a sports-specific database (Sport Discus). After applying inclusion and exclusion criteria, 100 articles were selected from an initial pool of 1,368 records. These were analysed and categorized into five thematic categories and ten subcategories of analysis. After full-text review, 96 were discarded for not meeting the defined criteria, leaving finally four studies that directly link body expression with emotional development in adolescents. The main findings point to benefits in self-esteem, empathy, emotional expression, and group cohesion, although a shortage of long-term studies and systematic approaches that consolidate this relationship is evident. It is concluded that further specific research is needed to support and analyse this relationship in detail.