Active parents, active children: The importance of parental organized physical activity in children’s extracurricular sport participation

Abstract

This study investigated whether parental participation in organized and unorganized physical activity (PA) was associated with children's participation in extracurricular sport. The sample comprised 834 parents and their children (aged 6-10 years), living in central Portugal. Questionnaires assessed parental PA (organized and unorganized) and extracurricular sport participation in children (number of sports and frequency of participation). Multinomial logistic regression was applied to assess associations between parental and child physical behaviors. Having both parents active was significantly associated with frequent participation in more sports both in girls and boys but a strong relation according to gender was found. The odds of boys practicing more than one sport and more times per week were higher if they had an active father. Girls with physically active mothers, particularly with mothers practicing organized PA in a regular way, were engaged in more sports and practiced sport more times per week. The type of PA practiced by the parents was not related to boys' participation in sport. Future interventions should be family-based and focus on the promotion of higher levels of parental PA, including organized, in order to improve their children's active behaviors.

How ‘The Daily Mile™’ works in practice: A process evaluation in a UK primary school

“…Relationships built during 'The Daily Mile' and self-selection of intensity could be argued to enable connectedness with school and family, peer support, social competence, self-efficacy and autonomy. Such protective factors are associated with development of resilience in school environments and sustained physical activity in youth (Morrison and Allen, 2007;Lee and Stewart, 2013;Craggs et al, 2011) 'The Daily Mile' also presented opportunity for activity modelling considered a strong driver of children's activity in other literature (Rodrigues et al, 2017). .…”

Child participation in sports is influenced by patterns of lifestyle‐related behaviors

“…Data were collected by a parental questionnaire previously used in the same population to study PA in children (Machado‐Rodrigues et al, ). Details about the data collection tool and process are described elsewhere (Rodrigues, Padez, & Machado‐Rodrigues, ). The study was approved by the Portuguese General Directorate of the Ministry of Education ( Direcção Geral De Inovação e Desenvolvimento Curricular ), which requires anonymity and no transmissibility of data; consent from parents and children was required.…”

Prevalence of Abdominal Obesity and Excess Weight among Portuguese Children and Why Abdominal Obesity Should Be Included in Clinical Practice

“…28,29 The study protocol was approved by the Portuguese Commission for Data Protection which requires anonymity and no transmissibility of data, corroborated by the Direcção Geral de Inovação e Desenvolvimento Curricular (Portuguese General Directorate of the Ministry of Education).…”

“…A total of 834 parents and respective children participated in the project 28 but the anthropometric measures were only collected in 793 children. Differences between the number of consents and children included in the study are due to children not being at school during data collection, not feeling well to participate, or simple refusing to be measured.…”

“…The sample included participants from a range of socioeconomic backgrounds and from different residential areas as described elsewhere 28,29 and evaluates slightly more than 13% of all the targeted population, since the latest data reported a total of 5992 children enrolled in the 1…”