Parent-Child Associations in Pedometer-Determined Physical Activity and Sedentary Behaviour on Weekdays and Weekends in Random Samples of Families in the Czech Republic

Abstract

This study investigates whether more physically active parents bring up more physically active children and whether parents’ level of physical activity helps children achieve step count recommendations on weekdays and weekends. The participants (388 parents aged 35–45 and their 485 children aged 9–12) were randomly recruited from 21 Czech government-funded primary schools. The participants recorded pedometer step counts for seven days (≥10 h a day) during April–May and September–October of 2013. Logistic regression (Enter method) was used to examine the achievement of the international recommendations of 11,000 steps/day for girls and 13,000 steps/day for boys. The children of fathers and mothers who met the weekend recommendation of 10,000 steps were 5.48 (95% confidence interval: 1.65; 18.19; p < 0.01) and 3.60 times, respectively (95% confidence interval: 1.21; 10.74; p < 0.05) more likely to achieve the international weekend recommendation than the children of less active parents. The children of mothers who reached the weekday pedometer-based step count recommendation were 4.94 times (95% confidence interval: 1.45; 16.82; p < 0.05) more likely to fulfil the step count recommendation on weekdays than the children of less active mothers.

Child and parental physical activity: Is there an association with young children activity?

“…Although there is no published research regarding the number of children that participate in after school activities, or the types of those activities, it is known that children in Greece take part in at least one organized movement programme, such as football, basketball, dance, or gymnastics. Regarding gender PA differences, previous research findings are conflicting, with some researchers reporting similar ambulatory activity for both genders (1,2) and others revealing that boys are more active than girls (19,20,29). In the present study, boys were found to have higher ambulatory activity than girls, however, both presented low levels of PA, a finding that is in line with the study of Kambas et al (2).…”

“…Boys (n = 29) Girls (n = 29) Fathers (n = 25) Mothers (n = 33) tigate potential associations between them. The results revealed that children were significantly more active on weekdays than at the weekend, a finding that is confirmed in several previous studies (2,19,26). In Greece, only one study (2) focusing on preschoolers' ambulatory activity had been conducted before this one, in which children accumulated 9,191 steps/day on weekdays and 7,913 steps/day at the weekend.…”

“…Pedometers were placed on the right hip of participants, who wore them for a typical week (7 consecutive days) of spring, all day long, except the hours of sleep, the bath time and activities in the water. This week started one day after the meeting with the parents; the pedometer data of the meeting day were not included in statistical analyses to deal with potential reactivity (18,19). For each day step counts, pedometer records lower than 1,000 or higher than 30,000 steps were considered as outliers and were not taken into account.…”

“…However, there are very few studies that have examined the association between parents' and children's PA with the use of pedometers. To our knowledge, there is only one study focusing on preschool age (18), a second one using data of 9-12 years old children (19), and a third one with a sample of a wider age range (20). Those studies have revealed that children's PA is associated with that of their parents (18)(19)(20).…”

“…Active parents appear to be more supportive of their young children's PA (11), especially at weekends, when family members share their free time, children of more active parents present higher PA levels than their peers of less active parents (18,19). The aforesaid studies provide evidence on the importance of the role of parents' PA to the enhancement of children's PA, however, this evidence is limited.…”