School travel mode, parenting practices and physical activity among UK Year 5 and 6 children

Jago, Russell; Wood, Lesley; Sebire, Simon; Edwards, Mark J.; Davies, Ben; Banfield, Kathryn; Fox, Kenneth; Thompson, Janice; Cooper, Ashley R.; Montgomery, Alan A.

Abstract

Background:

School travel mode and parenting practices have been associated with children’s physical activity (PA). The current study sought to examine whether PA parenting practices differ by school travel mode and whether school travel mode and PA parenting practices are associated with PA.

Methods:

469 children (aged 9-11) wore accelerometers from which mean weekday and after-school (3.30 to 8.30 pm) minutes of moderate-to-vigorous intensity PA (MVPA) and counts per minute (CPM) were derived. Mode of travel to and from school (passive vs. active) and PA parenting practices (maternal and paternal logistic support and modelling behaviour) were child-reported.

Results:

Children engaged in an average of 59.7 minutes of MVPA per weekday. Active travel to school by girls was associated with 5.9 more minutes of MVPA per day compared with those who travelled to school passively (p = 0.004). After-school CPM and MVPA did not differ by school travel mode. There was no evidence that physical activity parenting practices were associated with school travel mode.

Conclusions:

For girls, encouraging active travel to school is likely to be important for overall PA. Further formative research may be warranted to understand how both parental logistic support and active travel decisions are operationalized in families as a means of understanding how to promote increased PA among pre-adolescent children

Citation

Jago, R., Wood, L., Sebire, S., Edwards, M. J., Davies, B., Banfield, K., …Montgomery, A. A. (2014). School travel mode, parenting practices and physical activity among UK Year 5 and 6 children. BMC Public Health, 14, Article 370. https://doi.org/10.1186/1471-2458-14-370

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Acceptance Date: Apr 9, 2014
• Publication Date: Apr 16, 2014
• Deposit Date: Aug 16, 2017
• Publicly Available Date: Aug 16, 2017
• Journal: BMC Public Health
• Electronic ISSN: 1471-2458
• Publisher: Springer Verlag
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Volume: 14
• Article Number: 370
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1186/1471-2458-14-370.
• Keywords: Physical activity, Travel, Parenting, Children, Adolescents
• Public URL: https://nottingham-repository.worktribe.com/output/726898
• Publisher URL: https://bmcpublichealth.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/1471-2458-14-370