Parental Influences Towards Chinese Children’s Physical Activity Participation

This paper investigates the link between parents’ physical activity and their children’s physical activity participation. Psychological factors of both parents and children were examined to determine how parental factors affected children’s corresponding constructs. A total of 748 children (430 girls, 318 boys) and their parents were examined. The questionnaire was designed in two parts, one for the parents and one for the children. Correlations and path analysis were conducted. Results suggest that parental experiences and attitudes towards physical activity are significantly but weakly associated with children’s physical activity involvement. In the final model, child-perceived family environment and gender were found the most influential factors in shaping children’s physical activity participation. The final model accounted for 19.7 % of the variance of children’s physical activity participation. The standardized coefficients for the paths from children’s attitudes, child-perceived family environment and child’s gender to children’s physical activity level were .13, .27 and .31 respectively. All parental factors exerted their respective influences to children’s physical activity behaviour through children’s attitude and child-perceived family environment.