Association between parents’ and children’ implicit and explicit attitudes towards physical activity and sedentary behaviors

Abstract

Purpose. The present study aimed to explore the associations between parents’ physical activity (PA) and sedentary behaviors (SED) and their explicit and implicit attitudes towards these behaviors and their children’s PA and SED, and attitudes. Children’s and parents’ age and gender were taken into account. Method. One hundred and seven dyads composed of one parent (Mage = 42.9 years) and her/his child (Mage = 11.6 years) completed questionnaires assessing behaviors and explicit attitudes towards PA and SED. Implicit attitudes were evaluated with an Implicit Association Test. Results. Parents’ PA was positively correlated with their children’s PA. No significant correlation was noted for SED, implicit and explicit attitudes. Results from hierarchical regression analyses showed that children’s explicit attitudes towards PA were negatively associated with parents’ SED. Except for an unexpected result (i.e., children’s implicit attitudes were positively associated with parents’ explicit attitudes towards PA), no other association was found. Conclusion(s). This study is the first to investigate the association between parents’ and their children’s implicit and explicit attitudes towards PA and SED. The results indicate that focusing on the increase of PA, on the decrease of SED and the development of positive attitudes towards PA in both children and parents could be an interesting mean to promote PA in interventions aiming to improve families’ health.