Are family physical activity habits passed on to their children?

Zovko, Vinko (author), Đurić, Saša (author), Sember, Vedrana (author), Jurak, Gregor (author)

Studies of the familial association of physical activity (PA) and sedentary behaviour (SB) have increased in recent years. However, there is a lack of studies that have objectively examined the correlates between parents, grandparents, and childrens' PA. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to measure PA using accelerometers to determine the extent to which PA and SB correlate among parents, grandparents, and children. A sample of 169 children between 11-14 years (77 boys and 97 girls), 225 parents (98 males and 127 females) and 52 grandparents (16 males and 36 females) were recruited for the current study. Accelerometers RM42 (UKK Terveyspalvelut Oy, Tampere, Finland) were used to determine PA levels of children, parents and grandparents. Epoch was set to 1 second. Mothers' moderate-to-vigorous PA (MVPA) was associated with children's MVPA (p <0.05). After adjusting for age, BMI (child), and educational status, the results remain the same. Results of linear regression analyses for boys' sedentary time showed that fathers' sedentary time was significantly associated with boys (p < 0.01), but not with girls. The association of grandmothers' and grandfathers' MVPA activity with that of children showed that grandparents' MVPA, when adjusted for age, BMI, and educational status, was not a significant predictor (p > 0.05) of children's MVPA (total sample). In contrast, grandfathers' sedentary behaviour was a significant predictor (% = 0.269; p < 0.05) of children's sedentary behaviour (total sample). The results of the current study suggest that parental involvement in PA, particularly by mothers, is important for children's PA and, accordingly, healthy outcomes.

• Language: English
• Keywords: accelerometry, monitoring, MVPA, physical activity, sedentary behavior
• Work type: Article
• Typology: 1.01 - Original Scientific Article
• Organization: FŠ - Faculty of Sport; EF - School of Economics and Business
• Publication status: Published
• Publication version: Version of Record
• Year: 2021
• Number of pages: 1 spletni vir (1 datoteka PDF (7 str.))
• Numbering: Art. 741735
• PID: 20.500.12556/RUL-130141
• UDC: 796.035:173
• ISSN on article: 1664-1078
• DOI: 10.3389/fpsyg.2021.741735
• COBISS.SI-ID: 74084611
• Publication date in RUL: 10.09.2021

Record is a part of a journal

• Title: Frontiers in psychology
• Shortened title: Front. psychol.
• Publisher: Frontiers Media
• ISSN: 1664-1078
• COBISS.SI-ID: 519967513

Licences

• License: CC BY 4.0, Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International
• Link: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
• Description: This is the standard Creative Commons license that gives others maximum freedom to do what they want with the work as long as they credit the author.
• Licensing start date: 06.09.2021

Projects

• Funder: EC - European Commission
• Funding programme: Erasmus+ Programme of European Union
• Project number: 590662- EPP-1-2017-1-PT-SPO-SCP
• Name: European Union Physical Activity and Sport Monitoring System
• Acronym: EUPASMOS