Associations between Family Factors and Pre-adolescent Children’s Fitness

Abstract

This study examined the associations between family factors including: parental support/involvement, parental exercise behavior, parental rewards, children's perceptions of parental exercise behavior and children's fitness. The data were collected via a questionnaire for parents and a questionnaire for the fifth grade children from The Village Elementary School in Hilton, New York. The PACER test for cardiorespiratory endurance from the FITNESSGRAM test battery was also administered to the fifth grade students. Only paternal behaviors were significantly related to children's fitness. Therefore, a post hoc analysis was conducted to examine possible gender differences. For the variables of parental involvement/support, and parental exercise behavior there was a statistically significant relationship found between paternal involvement, paternal exercise habits and girls' fitness. In addition, there was a significant association found between girls' perceptions of father's exercise behavior and girls' fitness. There was no relationship found between parental rewards and children's fitness. Children's activity was significantly associated with their own fitness and children's perceptions of their parent's exercise behavior was correlated with their parent's self-report of personal exercise behavior. Implications of this study include the importance of father's modeling of exercise and its relationship with daughter's fitness.