Abstract
BackgroundFamily influence plays an important role in a child’s physical activity (PA). This study aimed to describe the level of moderate to vigorous intensity physical activity (MVPA) and sedentary behaviours among Chinese junior high school students and examine the associations between different types of family influence and MVPA or sedentary behaviours.MethodsParticipants of two independent cross-sectional surveys, conducted in 2009 and 2011, were students in Grade 7 and 9 from all junior high schools in Hangzhou, China. The daily duration and frequency of MVPA, amount of sedentary time and frequency of family support were self-reported. Multi-level mixed-effects logistic regression was used to examine the associations between different types or levels of family influence and MVPA or sedentary behaviours.ResultsA total of 7286 students were analysed finally. Overall, only 9.0% of the students participated in MVPA at least 60 minutes/day; 63.9% spent no more than 2 hours/day in sedentary behaviours. Frequent verbal encouragement and watching were associated with less leisure-time sedentary behaviours. The multivariate-adjusted odds ratios (ORs) for verbal encouragement and watching were 1.29 (95% CI, 1.08 to 1.55) and 1.19 (95% CI, 0.97 to 1.45) for 5-7 days per week. The involvement of family in the children’s activity in most days of the week was associated with both higher level of MVPA and less leisure-time sedentary behaviours. The respective ORs among students who reported familial support 5-7 days per week, were 1.50 (95% CI, 1.21 to 1.86) for engaging in seven days of MVPA per week, 1.67 (95% CI, 1.19 to 2.32) for at least 60 minutes of MVPA daily, and 1.48 (95% CI, 1.19 to 1.84) for no more than 2 hours of leisure-time sedentary behaviours daily.ConclusionsThis study found that less than 10.0% of urban Chinese adolescents engaged in MVPA at least 60 minutes/day. Family involving themselves in the children’s activity exerted the most significant influence on children’s behaviours as compared with verbally encouraging and observing children’s activity. Any type of familial support including verbally encouraging, watching, and involving had effects on reducing leisure-time sedentary behaviours.Electronic supplementary materialThe online version of this article (doi:10.1186/s12889-015-1593-9) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.
Highlights
Influence plays an important role in a child’s physical activity (PA)
The sample size estimation was based on the primary aim of Community Interventions for Health (CIH) programme, that was, intervention group exposed to interventions regarding tobacco use, food choices, and PA had a 6% greater change in the prevalence of each of the three risk factors [15]
We excluded students who were unable to engage in PA due to disability, temporary or permanent disease (n = 895) and with missing in any variables (n = 1090)
Summary
Influence plays an important role in a child’s physical activity (PA). This study aimed to describe the level of moderate to vigorous intensity physical activity (MVPA) and sedentary behaviours among Chinese junior high school students and examine the associations between different types of family influence and MVPA or sedentary behaviours. Several studies have correlated PA of adolescents with their family support such as parents encouraging their children to be more physical active, watching their children engaging in PA, and involving themselves in their children’s activity [8,9,10,11,12,13]. These supports have been suggested to affect children’s behaviours differently [14]. Instead of identifying their effects separately, previous studies mostly treated them as a whole
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