Early Gender Role Behavior And Adolescent Physical Activity

Abstract

Physical activity (PA) levels are higher in boys than girls and decline throughout adolescence, particularly in girls. Among pre-school children, differences in gender-role behaviour are already apparent. PURPOSE: To examine the prospective association between early gender-role behaviour and PA at age 12. METHODS: At age 12, children from Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents and Children were asked to wear an accelerometer for 7 days. PA outcome was counts/min. Gender role behaviour was assessed using the Pre-school Activities Inventory (PSAI) at age 3 1/2. The PSAI measures how often a child plays with sex-typical toys, games and activities. It was completed by the main carer. Multivariable regression was used to examine the associations between the PSAI and PA. Analyses were done separately for boys and girls, as there was evidence of a gender-PSAI interaction (p= 0.008). RESULTS: Accelerometer data were collected from 5595 children, mean age 11.8 years. For PA, means (SD) were 661 counts/min (185) for boys (n=2593) and 552 counts/min (152) for girls (n=2858). For PSAI scores means (SD; min-max scores) were 61.7 (8.7; 20.8-95.6) for boys (n=2290) and 37.0 (9.1; 8.7-72.5) for girls (n=2445) i.e., higher scores signify more male-typical behaviour. The Table shows the associations, stronger among boys than girls, for each model per SD change in the exposure variable.TableCONCLUSIONS: The results suggest that more male-typical behaviour in early childhood is associated with higher levels of PA in early adolescence, particularly in boys. Although the association is small, it is notable that a general measure of sex-typical behaviour in early childhood is able to predict adolescent PA. Supported by NIH Grant R01 HL071248-01A1