Understanding Associations Of Children’s And Parents’ Enjoyment With Their Subsequent Co-participation In Physical Activity

Abstract

PURPOSE: To determine if children’s or parents’ enjoyment of physical activity (PA) is associated with future co-participation in PA. METHODS: Each parent-child dyad (n=28; age (mean±SD), parents: 38.0±6.6 years, children: 6.0±1.7 years) was guided through five PAs (walking, jumping games, body-weight exercises, tag, dancing) in a research fitness center. Immediately after completing each PA, researchers provided the Visual Analog Scale (1-“Do not like it at all” to 5-“Like it very much”) to assess children’s and parents’ independent enjoyment of the PA. Dyads were asked to complete the PAs at home during the following week. Parents reported their dyad’s participation in the PAs one week later. Separate logistic regression analyses were performed to examine the association of children’s and parents’ PA enjoyment with subsequent completion of the PAs at home. RESULTS: For all five PAs, children's enjoyment of the activity was not significantly associated with the dyad’s completion at home (all p>0.05). However, parents' enjoyment of the activity was significantly associated with the dyad’s completion of the PA at home for jumping games (parental enjoyment (mean±SD): 4.73±0.65 for dyads that completed PA at home; 3.78±1.1 for dyads that did not; p=0.033) and dancing (parental enjoyment (mean±SD): 4.32±0.82 for dyads that completed PA at home; 3.10±1.73 for dyads that did not; p=0.032). CONCLUSIONS: Parents' enjoyment of PA may be more important than children's enjoyment of PA in predicting whether dyads complete activities at home. This could inform future exercise promotion research of parent-child dyads by focusing on PAs that the parents enjoy.