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ARS Home » Plains Area » Houston, Texas » Children's Nutrition Research Center » Research » Publications at this Location » Publication #269814
Title: Parent-child interactions and objectively measured child physical activity: a cross-sectional study

Author
item HENNESSY, ERIN - National Cancer Institute (NCI, NIH)
item HUGHES, SHERYL - Children'S Nutrition Research Center (CNRC)
item GOLDBERG, JEANNE - Tufts University
item HYATT, RAYMOND - Tufts University
item ECONOMOS, CHRISTINA - Tufts University

Submitted to: International Journal of Behavioral Nutrition and Physical Activity
Publication Type: Peer Reviewed Journal
Publication Acceptance Date: 10/7/2010
Publication Date: 11/22/2010
Citation: Hennessy, E., Hughes, S.O., Goldberg, J.P., Hyatt, R.R., Economos, C.D. 2010. Parent-child interactions and objectively measured child physical activity: a cross-sectional study. International Journal of Behavioral Nutrition and Physical Activity. 7(71):1-14.

Interpretive Summary: Parents impact children's behaviors directly through the ways they parent them during childhood. The purpose of this study was to better understand how parents impact their children’s physical activity through the ways they try to get them to be more active or not. A group of 76 parents and their children (29% White, 49% Black, 22% Hispanic) from rural areas of the United States participated in this study and the children wore a device that measured their movement. Children who had permissive parents (those who were very supportive but do not set many boundaries) were more active than those with uninvolved parents (those who do not set boundaries and are also not supportive). This study extends our understanding of how parents may impact their children’s active behaviors.

Technical Abstract: Parents influence their children's behaviors directly through specific parenting practices and indirectly through their parenting style. Some practices such as logistical and emotional support have been shown to be positively associated with child physical activity (PA) levels, while for others (e.g. monitoring) the relationship is not clear. The objectives of this study were to determine the relationship between parent's PA-related practices, general parenting style, and children's PA level. During the spring of 2007 a diverse group of 99 parent-child dyads (29% White, 49% Black, 22% Hispanic; 89% mothers) living in low-income rural areas of the US participated in a cross-sectional study. Using validated questionnaires, parents self-reported their parenting style (authoritative, authoritarian, permissive, and uninvolved) and activity-related parenting practices. Height and weight were measured for each dyad and parents reported demographic information. Child PA was measured objectively through accelerometers and expressed as absolute counts and minutes engaged in intensity-specific activity. Seventy-six children had valid accelerometer data. Children engaged in 113.4 +/- 37.0 min. of moderate-vigorous physical activity (MVPA) per day. Children of permissive parents accumulated more minutes of MVPA than those of uninvolved parents (127.5 vs. 97.1, p less than 0.05), while parents who provided above average levels of support had children who participated in more minutes of MVPA (114.2 vs. 98.3, p = 0.03). While controlling for known covariates, an uninvolved parenting style was the only parenting behavior associated with child physical activity. Parenting style moderated the association between two parenting practices - reinforcement and monitoring - and child physical activity. Specifically, post-hoc analyses revealed that for the permissive parenting style group, higher levels of parental reinforcement or monitoring were associated with higher levels of child physical activity. This work extends the current literature by demonstrating the potential moderating role of parenting style on the relationship between activity-related parenting practices and children's objectively measured physical activity, while controlling for known covariates. Future studies in this area are warranted and, if confirmed, may help to identify the mechanism by which parents influence their child's physical activity behavior.