Parent-Child Physical Activity Association in Families With 4-to 16-Year-Old Children.

Background: The main aim of this study was to quantify the associations between parents' and children's physical activity by age, gender, and the day of the week on the basis of a pedometer-measured step count (SC).

Methods: The sample comprised data from 4-to 16-year-old children and their parents from the Czech Republic (1102 mother-child dyads and 693 father-child dyads). The parents and their children wore the Yamax SW200 pedometer during seven days of monitoring.

Results: The strongest SC association was found between mothers and daughters aged 4-7.9 years on weekdays (r = 0.402; < 0.01) and at weekends (r = 0.577; < 0.01). In children aged 8-16, the parent-child association is gender-specific, with the father-son relationship being dominant, especially at weekends (weekend SC: fathers-sons r = 0.416, < 0.01; fathers-sons r = 0.443, < 0.01). An increase of 1000 steps in the fathers (mothers) is associated with an increase of more than 400 (200) steps in their sons (daughters).

Conclusions: This study confirms a strong parent-child SC relationship in children younger than eight years of age. In older children, the parent-child SC association is gender-specific and dominated by the father-son relationship, particularly on weekends. The SC associations that are revealed can be used for the development of physical activity programs for adolescents.