Recreational physical activity and spare time in adolescents

Recreational physical activity is presented as an alternative to the misuse of spare time by adolescents who choose to watch television, use social media, play video games, and engage in other activities that are not conducive to their overall development. The aim of this article was to systematize the theoretical and methodological bases of recreational physical activity and spare time in adolescents, for which the Prisma 2020 Protocol methodology was used, following a selection criterion for the chosen material. To this end, a search was conducted in the Dialnet and Scielo databases. In addition, institutional repositories and the academic search engine Google Scholar were consulted. To reduce the number of documents, Boolean operators such as “AND”, “OR,” and “+” were used, and for the accuracy of the search, the keywords recreational physical activity, leisure, recreation, spare time, and adolescents were used. It is concluded that recreational physical activity is an excellent alternative with multiple benefits for comprehensive development, and although adolescents still opt for unproductive activities, it is essential to promote projects, proposals, programs with a recreational sports focus that are of interest and appeal to adolescents. Keywords: Recreational physical activity, leisure, recreation, spare time, teenagers.