Let’s Move Together

Abstract

Background Due to shared health behaviors and disease risk, families may be more effective targets for health promotion. This study assessed whether providing family health history (FHH)-based risk information for heart disease and diabetes affected encouragement to engage in physical activity (PA) and healthy weight (HW) maintenance and co-engagement in physical activity among 320 Mexican-origin parents and their 1,081 children. Method At baseline and 10 months, parents indicated who they encouraged and who encouraged them to engage in PA/HW, and with whom they coengaged in PA. Households were randomized to receive FHH-based assessments either by one or all adult household members. Primary analyses consisted of regression analyses using generalized estimating equations. Results At baseline, parents reported encouraging their child for both PA and HW in 37.6% of parent-child dyads and reported receiving children’s encouragement for both in 12.1% of dyads. These increased to 56.8% and 17.5% at 10 months (p < .001). Co-engagement in PA increased from 11.4% to 15.7% (p < .001), with younger children (30.4%) and mother-daughter dyads (26.8%) most likely to co-engage at 10 months. Providing FHH-based risk information to all adult household members (vs. one) was associated with increased parent-to-child encouragement of PA/HW (p = .011) at 10 months but not child-to-parent encouragement. New encouragement from parent-to-child (p = .048) and from child-to-parent (p = .003) predicted new 10-month PA co-engagement. Discussion Providing FHH information on a household level can promote parental encouragement for PA/HW, which can promote greater parent-child co-engagement in PA. In this high-risk population with a cultural emphasis on family ties, using FHH-based risk information for all adult household members may be a promising avenue to promote PA.

Remote Acculturation and Physical Activity Among Adolescent-Mother Dyads in Jamaica: A Developmental Dyadic Moderation

“…Consequently, it is important to consider child gender when investigating these effects within mother-adolescent dyads in Jamaica. Overall, methods that capture these developmental, gender, and contextual influences on physical activity in the context of dyadic relationships can identify which individuals and families may be at greater risk for inactivity, as well as show how interventions could leverage these dyadic relationships to promote physical activity among both partners (De Heer et al, 2017).…”

Comparative Effectiveness of Behavioral Interventions for Cardiovascular Risk Reduction in Latinos

“…The intervention consisted of mailing customized family health history pamphlets to Latino families with 10-month follow-up and included either children or spouses. 35,43 All included articles examined more than 1 outcome. Psychosocial outcomes were measured in 4 articles (23.5%).…”

Leveraging Emergent Social Networks to Reduce Sedentary Behavior in Low-Income Parents With Preschool-Aged Children

“…Among parents receiving the intervention, those who were engaged in making healthy changes together to reduce health risks for themselves and their children may have generated communal coping processes that foster interpersonal communication, support, and co-engagement in solutions and behaviors to reduce their collective risk (Afifi et al, 2006). When these processes are elicited in social groups receiving a health behavior intervention, successful behavior change is more likely than if attempted at an individual level (de Heer et al, 2017). Because our results were not statistically significant, we must exercise caution in overinterpreting the findings.…”