physical activity refers to any movement produced by skeletal muscles that results in energy expenditure , and can be measured quantitatively using metabolic equivalents or step - counts ( 9 ) . as such
, physical activity is an encompassing term that includes exercise , training , participating in sport , active play and active transportation .
secular trends for increasing levels of sedentary behavior and low levels of physical activity result in only 7% of children aged 5 to 17 years engaging in the recommended 60 minutes of moderate to vigorous physical activity ( mvpa ) a day ( 1 ) .
this recent report identifying children s low level of physical activity also noted , that : north americans value efficiency - doing more in less time - which may be at odds with promoting children s physical activity and health ( 1 ) . to promote an environment that allows children to reach the minimum physical activity recommendations , it is paramount for influencing factors to be identified . reduced use of active transportation , decreased levels of spontaneous active play ( especially outdoor play ) , and decreased school physical activity and physical education , has resulted in low levels of physical activity and high levels of sedentary time in children and youth ( specifically , ages 517 years ) ( 3 ) .
one of the most prominent influences on children s physical activity levels may be their parents / guardians ( referred to as parents , hereafter ) . parents serve as role models for their children , logistical supporters ( financially and otherwise ) , encouragers , and as co - participators ( 2 ) .
parents also act as guardians and can either promote or restrict children s activity . as the literature suggests , more controlling and restrictive parents relate to children with lower physical activity levels ( 7 ) . the varying domains of parental influence may have lasting effects on their children s physical activity with numerous studies reflecting the importance of parental involvement and encouragement specifically ( 2 ) .
the intent of this study was to examine the relationship between physical activity levels in parents and their children as well as the various influences parents have on their children s physical activity . if highly related , encouraging not only children s physical activity but also their parents physical activity and how , when , and in what manner parents encourage their children to be physically active could have an emerging influence on increasing physical activity levels in children .
using convenience sampling , parents and their children aged 7 to 10 years old from a local afterschool physical activity program were invited to participate in this study . in total fifteen child - parent pairs
parents were asked to complete a 17-item self - report questionnaire regarding their child s participation in physical activity and the various ways they might influence it .
this questionnaire was developed specifically for this study with questions about ( 1 ) parent s support / encouragement , ( 2 ) restrictiveness ( willingness to allow children to play actively outside ) and ( 3 ) personal participation in physical activity .
i arrange to get my child to and from his / her sporting events and/or after school programs  .
an example of a question regarding restrictiveness is :  i feel it is safe for my child to play outside  .
for these two types of questions , a 5-point likert scale was used with responses ranging from strongly disagree to strongly agree .
parental participation was determined from questions like :  how often , in a typical week , do you participate in physical activity or exercise ?  .
response options included  never / rarely , 12 times , 34 times , 56 times , and daily  .
responses to each section of the questionnaire were scored 1 to 5 with higher values given to positive affirmation of children s physical activity ( such as higher levels of support , and/or higher levels of physical activity participation ) . upon receipt of the completed questionnaire ,
the child and parent were asked to wear pedometers ( piezo step rx , stepcount ) for all waking hours for seven days , excluding all water - based activities ( i.e. , bathing , swimming , etc . ) .
parents were also asked to record any non - wear time for themselves and for their child as well as the time the pedometer was put on in the morning and taken off at night . for each child and parent in the study , their moderate - vigorous intensity activity and total number of steps were recorded and averaged over the number of days collected ( 3 to 7 days ) to provide an overall summary or indication of their level of physical activity .
although each child - parent pair were asked to wear their pedometer for seven days , participants data were still included in the analyses provided there were at least three complete ( 10 + hours ) days of pedometer data . to determine the relationship between parent and child physical activity levels
, a one - tailed pearson product correlation analyses was conducted between the parent and child s average steps per day with an -level of p  0.05 to determine significance . to address the secondary purposes of this study , data obtained via the questionnaires
the parents likert - scale responses to the questionnaire were totalled for each section of the questionnaire with total scores ranging from a possible 5 to 20 points for support / encouragement and 5 to 15 for restrictiveness and self - reported participation .
pearson product correlations were then used to determine the correlation coefficients between these variables and the children s average steps per day with significance set at p  0.05 .
using convenience sampling , parents and their children aged 7 to 10 years old from a local afterschool physical activity program were invited to participate in this study . in total fifteen child - parent pairs
parents were asked to complete a 17-item self - report questionnaire regarding their child s participation in physical activity and the various ways they might influence it .
this questionnaire was developed specifically for this study with questions about ( 1 ) parent s support / encouragement , ( 2 ) restrictiveness ( willingness to allow children to play actively outside ) and ( 3 ) personal participation in physical activity .
i arrange to get my child to and from his / her sporting events and/or after school programs  .
an example of a question regarding restrictiveness is :  i feel it is safe for my child to play outside  .
for these two types of questions , a 5-point likert scale was used with responses ranging from strongly disagree to strongly agree .
parental participation was determined from questions like :  how often , in a typical week , do you participate in physical activity or exercise ?  .
never / rarely , 12 times , 34 times , 56 times , and daily  .
responses to each section of the questionnaire were scored 1 to 5 with higher values given to positive affirmation of children s physical activity ( such as higher levels of support , and/or higher levels of physical activity participation ) . upon receipt of the completed questionnaire ,
the child and parent were asked to wear pedometers ( piezo step rx , stepcount ) for all waking hours for seven days , excluding all water - based activities ( i.e. , bathing , swimming , etc . )
. parents were also asked to record any non - wear time for themselves and for their child as well as the time the pedometer was put on in the morning and taken off at night .
for each child and parent in the study , their moderate - vigorous intensity activity and total number of steps were recorded and averaged over the number of days collected ( 3 to 7 days ) to provide an overall summary or indication of their level of physical activity .
although each child - parent pair were asked to wear their pedometer for seven days , participants data were still included in the analyses provided there were at least three complete ( 10 + hours ) days of pedometer data . to determine the relationship between parent and child physical activity levels
, a one - tailed pearson product correlation analyses was conducted between the parent and child s average steps per day with an -level of p  0.05 to determine significance . to address the secondary purposes of this study , data obtained via the questionnaires were examined in greater detail .
the parents likert - scale responses to the questionnaire were totalled for each section of the questionnaire with total scores ranging from a possible 5 to 20 points for support / encouragement and 5 to 15 for restrictiveness and self - reported participation .
pearson product correlations were then used to determine the correlation coefficients between these variables and the children s average steps per day with significance set at p  0.05 .
although 17 parent - child pairs consented to participate in this study , only the data from 15 parent - child pairs were included in the data analyses because one child lost the pedometer and another set was not returned .
as previously mentioned for inclusion in the study , parents needed to complete the questionnaire and parents and children had to provide at least three days of sufficient pedometer data ( minimally 10 hours ) . in fulfilling these requirements , 30 participants or 15 parent - child pairs were included in the data analyses .
on average , parents took 8438.13  2758.67 steps per day while their children took 13077.00  3026.93 steps .
there was no significant correlation between the average number of steps for parents and their children ( r = 0.069 ; p = 0.597 ) as shown in figure 1 .
a pearson product correlation analyses between children s number of steps per day and the various measures of parental influence ( see table 2 ) were then conducted .
it was found that there were no relationships between ( a ) children s steps and parent s self - reported support / encouragement ( r = 0.045 , p = 0.564 ) , ( b ) , children s steps and parent s self - reported restrictiveness ( r = .0254 , p = 0.820 ) , or ( c ) children s steps and parent s self - reported participation / co - participation in physical activity ( r = 0.002 , p = 0.503 ) .
the purpose of this study was primarily to determine the relationship between parents and their children s physical activity .
a secondary purpose was to determine the relationship of other parental factors ( encouragement / support , restrictiveness and self - reported participation / co - participation ) with children s physical activity levels .
the lack of significant relationship between children and their parents physical activity might suggest that the basis of children s activity does not lie primarily in parental factors and their role modeling .
other influences such as intrinsic motivations to be physically active might play more prominent roles then once perceived .
although on average , the children ( ~ 13,000 steps / day ) exceeded the minimum recommendations of 12,000 steps per day , their parents ( ~ 8,400 steps / day ) did not meet the recommended 10,000 steps per day ( 3 ) .
a possible explanation for this data might be that in some instances , such as sporting practices or tournaments , parents drive their child to participate but when their child is partaking in the physical activity , parents are in most instances , spectators . for most of the day ,
some parents engage in high amounts of sedentary time ( as required by their jobs ) .
these low levels of physical activity are confirmed with only 15% of canadians adults meeting the minimum physical activity requirements of 150 minutes of mvpa per week ( 1 ) .
children on the other hand have recess , and in some instances afterschool programs that allow for higher levels of physical activity .
the parent s lower levels of physical activity while their children are active may help to explain the lack of support for the hypothesis that parents and children s physical activity levels would be related .
perhaps there might be a more complex interconnection between parental modeling of physical activity and children s level of physical activity than expected . with lower levels of physical activity , rates of chronic and acute health concerns increase
, making it paramount for attention to be given to identify possible factors connected to children s physical activity .
it is important to note the lack of variance in children s steps ( as most were between 10,000 and 15,000 steps per day ) while the adult steps showed considerable variability ranging from about 4,000 to 15,000 steps per day . in other words ,
this suggests these children were equally physically active despite differences that may exist among them such as sport participation and/or parental factors .
there was a much larger fluctuation in the parents step counts and therefore also in their level of physical activity .
a closer look at the individual data shows that only three parents , or 19% of the sample obtained more than 10,000 steps per day while nine children ( or 56% ) had over 12,000 steps per day .
further , in this study , every child obtained the recommended minimum amount of 60 minutes of moderate or more intense physical activity per day ( as determined by the time of pedometer steps greater than 100 per minute ) .
the parents were also on pace for acquiring the minimum recommendations of 150 minutes of moderate or more intense physical activity per week ( assuming their steps were obtained in bouts of at least ten ) .
this paradox of the parents attaining the physical activity recommendations according to minutes of mvpa but not reaching the recommended number of steps / per day could possibly be explained by parents who are extremely active for two or more hours one day , and are less active through the rest of the week ( or something similar ) .
it should be noted that the sample of children in the study was more physically active than the general population . with 56% of children in the study obtaining more than the recommended steps per day
, it is difficult to draw reasonable conclusions reflective of the general populace where only 7% of 5 to 17 year olds achieve the minimum physical activity requirements . as such , within a 
normal population , parental factors may play a more prominent role in the development and/or adherence to their children s physical activity . the lack of relationship between parents self - reported support / encouragement of their children s physical activity was surprising , given previous research ( 2 , 10 ) .
the results indicate that although parents self - reported considerable supportive and encouraging behaviours , it did not relate to their children s physical activity . parental support , particularly positive encouragement and interpersonal actions
it has also been suggested that physical activity interventions should focus on improving parental encouragement specifically increasing positive tangible support , such as helping and teaching certain techniques ; however , the results of the present study do not support this suggestion ( 11 , 12 ) .
contrarily , the results of our study suggest parental support and encouragement may not play as a significant role as once thought . many parents in our study self - reported high levels of financial support as they noted their children attending sporting programs and afterschool programs ; however , the correlation between this influence and children s level of physical activity was non - significant . a prevailing theme to understand this complexity is to note that the sample selected in this study was more active than the population , and that despite the overwhelming parental support / encouragement , it did not relate to their children s level of physical activity .
another hypothesis not supported in this study was that less parental control or restrictiveness would relate to higher physical activity rates in children .
this finding is also surprising because up until this point , advocates for physical activity promotion in children , particularly those for outdoor play , have said that allowing children to be more creative and explorative is paramount to permitting them to be more physically active ( 6 , 7 ) .
it is possible ; however , that with the influences of technology and social media that less restrictive parents are giving their children more freedom , just to have their children  hang - out  with friends , playing gaming systems or watching television .
realistically , parents do not always know what their children are doing with friends when away from their supervision , and this could be one theory that could explain the lack of a correlation .
equally surprising was the lack of significant relationship between the parents self - reported participation and children s level of physical activity primarily because children often do what they see . by this notion , a higher level of parental participation in physical activity should then relate to higher levels of physical activity in children .
it has been speculated that higher levels of parental co - play could relate to higher levels of children s physical activity because children might enjoy playing with their parents ( 8) .
however , some children report that parents are too rule - driven when they play together , and that parental games are not as fun as children s games ( 5 ) .
this lack of enjoyment of being physically active together could contribute to the lack of correlation between parents and children s physical activity levels .
the sample size for this study was relatively small , with only 15 child - parent pairs providing complete data and may be a limitation , particularly as the participants were localized in a smaller demographic and came from the same afterschool physical activity program .
as such the findings are limited to children 7 to 10 years of age and their parents .
it is also important to identify cultural aspects of the study , which could also pose limitations ; as participant experiences may have been affected by a north american culture .
self - report questionnaires are inherently limited by their nature of self - report and the potential for bias to present oneself as a good parent who does all they could / should for their children .
more female ( 11 ) than male ( 4 ) parents provided data for this study , and parental age was not taken into consideration , both potential limitations .
further research could ensure a balanced representation of parent participants as well as data collection from a larger age range of children and family situations ( single parent , lower income , younger / older parents , different bmis , etc . ) .
future studies should consider children s motivations for being physically active as well as identifying possible influences of how different parenting styles ( e.g. , supportive , authoritative ) might affect physical activity in children .
further , it may be worth exploring the children s perceptions of how their parents involvement may affect their overall activity levels .
what is not clear is the impact of parental influences , particularly interrelated in relation to peer influences and how much of a role they play in children s adherence and physical activity participation .
it may be that parents think they are positive role models for their children s physical activity and that they think they are supportive and encouraging when in fact they may not be , or may not have as great an influence as they think as found in this study .
given that only 7% of children aged 5 to 17 years are meeting the minimal physical activity guidelines ( 3 ) , there is a high importance to identify possible factors that influence physical activity for current and long term health , something must be done . in conclusion ,
the lack of significant relationships found between parents and their children s physical activity in the data suggests that there is more to children s physical activity levels than parental support / encouragement , restrictiveness and participation .
clarity and an objective evaluation of this relationship may lead to a better understanding , which may lead to more effective physical activity promotion in children .
maybe it is time that we begin to change the way we think about physical activity , as the theories engrained in our minds are not the same as the realities being produced .
 engaging in a physically active lifestyle relates positively to current health and reduces chances of chronic diseases in the future . 
 given escalating health care costs , it is paramount to reduce illnesses associated with a lack of physical activity and thus critical to identify factors that influence physical activity - especially in children , with the opportunity for a lifetime impact . 
 one of these influencing factors may be parents / guardians . 
 the intent of this study was to examine the relationship between children s physical activity levels and parental factors including parental physical activity , support / encouragement , restrictiveness , and self - reported participation . 
 data was collected from 15 child - parent pairs with children ranging in age from 7 to 10 years . 
 daily physical activity levels were determined from pedometer data using a piezo sc - step pedometer . 
 number of steps and moderate and vigorous physical activity were extracted from the pedometers and levels of support / encouragement , restrictiveness , and participation were quantified from parents self - reported responses to a questionnaire created for this study . 
 pearson product correlation analyses were carried out between : the children s and parent steps ( r = 0.069 ; p = 0.597 ) ; children s steps and parent s self - reported encouragement / support ( r = 0.045 , p = 0.563 ) ; children s steps and parents self - reported restrictiveness ( r = .0254 , p = 0.820 ) ; and children s steps and parents self - reported participation ( r = 0.002 , p = 0.503 ) . 
 the lack of significant relationships among these variables implies that more complex interactions occur between children and their parents regarding physical activity with children s participation influenced by other factors . 