Background: Interventions to increase children’s physical activity have had limited success.
One reason may be that children and their parents...
» More
Background: Interventions to increase children’s physical activity have had limited success.
One reason may be that children and their parents overestimate children’s levels of physical
activity, although there are few data on this topic.
Purpose: This study aimed to assess awareness of physical activity levels among British
school children aged 9–10 years and their parents.
Methods: Physical activity was measured by accelerometer in a cross-sectional study of 1892
children (44% male; mean age=10.3 years, SD=0.3) from 92 Norfolk schools (SPEEDY
study). Data were collected between April and July 2007 and analyzed in 2008. Inactive was
defined as <60 min/day of moderate and vigorous physical activity. Agreement between
physical activity perception (child- and parent-rated) and objective physical activity was
assessed. Associations between biological (height, weight, fat mass index), parental (support,
BMI, physical activity) and peer factors (support, objective physical activity) and child and
parental physical activity awareness were studied using multinomial logistic regression.
Results: In all, 39% of girls and 18% of boys were inactive. A total of 80% of parents of
inactive children wrongly thought that their child was sufficiently active. In all, 40% of
inactive children overestimated their physical activity level. Compared to parents who
accurately described their children as inactive, overestimators were more likely to have girls
(p=0.005), a child with a lower fat mass index (p<0.001) or reporting more parental and peer
support (p=0.014 and p<0.001, respectively).
Conclusions: Most parents of inactive children wrongly consider their children to be
sufficiently active; parents of children with a lower fat mass index appear to assume that their
children are adequately active. Increasing awareness regarding health benefits of physical
activity beyond weight control might help reverse misperceptions of physical activity levels
