Mother-child dyadic influences of affect on everyday movement behaviors: evidence from an ecological momentary assessment study

Chih-Hsiang Yang,Britni R. Belcher,Genevieve F. Dunton,Martina Kanning,Jimi Huh,Tyler B. Mason

doi:10.1186/s12966-020-00951-6

Abstract

BackgroundResearch has shown that affect is associated with everyday movement behaviors in children and adults. However, limited work to date has investigated dyadic influences of momentary affect on moderate-to-vigorous physical activity (MVPA) and sedentary time among children and their mothers using ecological momentary assessment (EMA).MethodsMothers and their children (eight to 12-years-old at baseline) from the Los Angeles metropolitan area participated in a longitudinal study with six semi-annual measurement waves across three years. During each measurement wave, mothers and children reported momentary negative and positive affect via a custom smartphone-based EMA application across seven days (randomly sampled up to eight times per day). Each dyad member’s momentary affective states were used to predict their own and the other dyad member’s accelerometer-measured MVPA and sedentary time in the prompt-matched 45-min time window. Multilevel modeling within the actor-partner interdependence model (APIM) framework was applied to accommodate the nested dyadic nature of the data.ResultsAt the within-subject level, when children had higher-than-usual positive affect, they engaged in greater MVPA and less sedentary time in the prompt-matched 45-min window (actor effects; ps < .001). When mothers experienced higher-than-usual positive affect, they engaged in more sedentary time in the same 45-min window (actor effect; p < .001). Children’s higher-than-usual positive affect also predicted more MVPA time of their mothers (partner effect; p < .05). At the between-subjects level, for mothers who reported higher average negative affect than other mothers, their children overall had less MVPA and more sedentary time (partner effects ps < .05).ConclusionsThis study extends the literature by demonstrating that mothers’ and children’s everyday physical activity and sedentary time are not only associated with their own affective states, but also may be influenced by the affective states of each other. Our findings suggest that affective states have the potential to influence movement behaviors in mother-child dyads’ everyday lives. Affective underpinnings of physical activity and sedentary behaviors should be further studied in order to develop family-based intervention strategies to influence these behaviors.

Highlights

The high prevalence of physical inactivity among children and adolescents has become one of the most critical public health issues in modern society
One study using ecological momentary assessment (EMA) and accelerometry found that when children experienced higher states of feeling energetic and lower states of feeling tired, they had more subsequent moderate-tovigorous physical activity (MVPA) in the 30 min following the prompts
The actor effects in the current study examined the momentary association of mother’s and child’s affective states with their own activity patterns, and the partner effects examined the momentary association of mother’s and child’s affective states with their dyad member’s activity patterns

Summary

Introduction

The high prevalence of physical inactivity among children and adolescents has become one of the most critical public health issues in modern society. Affective processes and determinants of health behaviors, for example the impact of stress, emotions, incidental or anticipated affect on physical activity, have been highlighted in theoretical frameworks such as the dual-processing model, the self-regulation theory, and the self-determination theory [5,6,7,8] Research in this area using ecological momentary assessment (EMA) found that various momentary affective states predicted future activity levels within a few minutes to several hours [9,10,11,12,13,14]. Another EMA study using the same child sample as the current study (ages eight to 12 years) consistently showed that momentary positive and negative affect did not serve as precursors in predicting children’s MVPA or sedentary time either in the following 30 or 60 min [15] These studies generally investigated whether individuals’ affect predicted their own activity levels but did not consider the simultaneous interpersonal affective influences. Limited work to date has investigated dyadic influences of momentary affect on moderate-tovigorous physical activity (MVPA) and sedentary time among children and their mothers using ecological momentary assessment (EMA)

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