Parental Influence on Children's Physical Activity

Background/Purpose. The lack of engagement in physical activity (PA) has become a significant health issue associated with the increase in childhood and adolescent overweight and obesity in the U.S. In order to better understand the factors that influence child and adolescent PA participation, researchers have explored a variety of biological, behavioral, and environmental factors. Parental influence has been described as a key correlate of youth PA, although the exact mechanism of this influence is not well understood. The Youth Physical Activity Promotion (YPAP) model developed by Welk serves as the theoretical basis for the present study as parental influence is proffered as an important reinforcing factor in the model. The model theorizes that parental factors have both a direct and indirect affect on youth PA behavior. The primary purpose of this study was to examine the relationships between selected parental influences and PA behaviors in children residing in a remote-rural community.

Method. Volunteer participants included 154 students in grades 4 - 12 from a small remote-rural school in the Midwest and one of their parents. To measure PA, each student completed either the PAQ-C or PAQ-A, a 7-day recall instrument. Parental beliefs were measured using a 80-item questionnaire which was an adaptation of instruments used by Kimiecik and Horn. The instrument included subscales to measure parental values, reasons for participation, family environment, expectations, and importance of physical activity. Parental stage of change for exercise behavior was also measured.

Analysis/Results. A two-way ANOVA revealed no difference in PA between boys and girls, but results indicated that PA significantly declines as grade level increases (ES = 0.27). Pearson correlations between the parental influence measures and children's PA were surprisingly low. The only significant correlations occurred for the importance subscale (r = .26) and reasons subscale (r = .25) for girls. None of the parental variables were significantly related to boy's PA. Results of a forward stepwise multiple regression analysis performed on the entire sample yielded a model consisting of two predictor variables, age and parental values, that significantly explained children's PA, accounting for 24% of the variance in PA. However, age alone accounted for 20% of the explained variance.

Conclusions. The findings of this study provide little support for the importance of parental influence on children's PA and raise questions about the utility of the YPAP model.