Research article
Evaluating a model of parental influence on youth physical activity

https://doi.org/10.1016/S0749-3797(03)00217-4Get rights and content

Abstract

Objective

To test a conceptual model linking parental physical activity orientations, parental support for physical activity, and children's self-efficacy perceptions with physical activity participation.

Participants and setting

The sample consisted of 380 students in grades 7 through 12 (mean age, 14.0±1.6 years) and their parents. Data collection took place during the fall of 1996.

Main outcome measures

Parents completed a questionnaire assessing their physical activity habits, enjoyment of physical activity, beliefs regarding the importance of physical activity, and supportive behaviors for their child's physical activity. Students completed a 46-item inventory assessing physical activity during the previous 7 days and a 5-item physical activity self-efficacy scale. The model was tested via observed variable path analysis using structural equation modeling techniques (AMOS 4.0).

Results

An initial model, in which parent physical activity orientations predicted child physical activity via parental support and child self-efficacy, did not provide an acceptable fit to the data. Inclusion of a direct path from parental support to child physical activity and deletion of a nonsignificant path from parental physical activity to child physical activity significantly improved model fit. Standardized path coefficients for the revised model ranged from 0.17 to 0.24, and all were significant at the p<0.0001 level.

Conclusions

Parental support was an important correlate of youth physical activity, acting directly or indirectly through its influence on self-efficacy. Physical activity interventions targeted at youth should include and evaluate the efficacy of individual-level and community-level strategies to increase parents’ capacity to provide instrumental and motivational support for their children's physical activity.

Introduction

I ncreasing the proportion of children and adolescents who engage in regular physical activity continues to be a public health priority.1, 2, 3 Interventions should be based on empirical evidence of correlates of the behavior.4 Although there is a large literature on correlates of youth physical activity,5 most of the variance remains unexplained.

Family members, especially parents, play an important role in the development of children's health behaviors.6 However, the mechanisms of parental influence remain understudied and poorly understood.6, 7 According to Baranowski,8 parents can influence their children's health behaviors through a variety of mechanisms. These include genetics, direct modeling, rewarding desirable behaviors and punishing or ignoring undesirable behaviors, establishing or eliminating barriers, providing resources to perform the behavior, and employing authoritative parenting procedures to help the child develop self-control skills. Importantly, a comprehensive understanding of how parents influence their children's physical activity behavior is needed to inform the development of effective family-based physical activity interventions.4, 9

To date, most of the research pertaining to children's physical activity has focused on the direct modeling hypothesis. Many,10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19 but not all,20, 21, 22, 23, 24 of these studies have reported a positive correlation between the physical activity levels of parents and their children. However, when the influence of parental physical activity is considered alongside other forms of parental influence, the importance of modeling is diminished and other constructs, such as parental beliefs about physical activity and parental encouragement, emerge as more important predictors.25, 26 Moreover, studies have shown that child-level psychosocial correlates of activity behavior (e.g., perceived competence) should also be taken into account when examining the links between parental and child physical activity.27, 28

The purpose of the present study was to test a conceptual model linking parental physical activity orientations (parental physical activity, parental enjoyment of physical activity, and perceived importance of physical activity) and parental instrumental support for physical activity with children's self-efficacy perceptions and physical activity participation.29 Age and gender were included as covariates. It was hypothesized that the relationship between parental physical activity orientations and children's physical activity behaviors would be mediated by the level of parental support and the children's resultant self-efficacy perceptions. The direct modeling hypothesis was also tested by evaluating the direct relationship between parental and child physical activity.

Section snippets

Sample

The study was part of the Amherst Health and Activity Study, a cross-sectional observational study examining age and gender differences in physical activity and the correlates of physical activity.30, 31 Data collection took place during fall 1996. Subjects were recruited from the junior and senior high school located in Amherst MA. All 1712 students enrolled in physical education were provided with a packet containing study information, an informed consent document, and a questionnaire. Of

Results

Descriptive statistics for the study variables are shown in Table 2. On average, boys reported significantly more physical activity than girls. Parents reported significantly higher levels of support and perceived importance for boys compared to girls. Overall, the level of parent support was low, with parents encouraging, providing transport, or performing physical activity with their child less than twice per week on average.

The result of the initial path analysis is shown in Figure 2. For

Discussion

Parental support for physical activity has been identified as a key correlate of children's physical activity behavior.5, 35 However, relatively little is known about the factors that promote parental support, and it remains unclear whether this construct influences child physical activity directly or indirectly through its effect on proximal psychosocial variables, such as self-efficacy for physical activity. The present study tested a conceptual model in which parental support for physical

Acknowledgements

This study was funded by a grant from the Cowles Media Foundation.

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