Parent participation plays an important part in promoting physical activity

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Abstract

Although physical activity (PA) is an important and modifiable determinant of health, in Sweden only 15% of boys and 10% of girls aged 15 years old achieve the recommended levels of PA 7 days per week. Adolescents’ PA levels are associated with social influence exerted by parents, friends, and teachers. The purpose of this study was to describe parents’ experiences of being a part of their adolescents’ empowerment-inspired PA intervention. A qualitative interview study was performed at a school in the northern part of Sweden. A total of 10 parents were interviewed, and the collected data were analyzed with qualitative content analysis. Three subthemes were combined into one main theme, demonstrating that parents are one important part of a successful PA intervention. The life of an adolescent has many options and demands that make it difficult to prioritize PA. Although parents felt that they were important in supporting their adolescent, a successful PA intervention must have multiple components. Moreover, the parents noted that the intervention had a positive effect upon not only their adolescents’, but also their own PA. Interventions aimed at promoting PA among adolescents should include measures to stimulate parent participation, have an empowerment approach, and preferably be school-based.

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Preventing childhood obesity: what works?

L Birch, A K Ventura (2009)

Rates of overweight in North American children and adolescents have increased dramatically since the 1970s. Childhood obesity has reached epidemic proportions and calls for prevention and treatment programs to reverse this trend have been made. However, the evidence base needed for effective action is still incomplete, especially for childhood obesity prevention programs. This paper focuses on primary prevention of childhood obesity and has three aims: (1) to briefly describe current primary prevention approaches for childhood obesity and the evidence for their impact; (2) to elucidate promising, but untested intervention strategies using an ecological framework and evidence from experimental and epidemiological research on factors influencing children's eating and weight status; and (3) to introduce a multiphase strategy for screening intervention components and building and evaluating potent interventions for childhood obesity. Most childhood obesity prevention programs have focused on school-aged children and have had little success. We suggest that, given these findings, prevention efforts should be expanded to explore other contexts in which children live as possible settings for intervention efforts, including the family and childcare settings. Given that 25% of preschool children are already overweight, intervening with children before school entry should be a priority. A review of experimental research on the developing controls of food intake in infancy and childhood suggests possible intervention strategies, focusing on parenting and aspects of the feeding environment. Epidemiological findings point to even earlier modifiable risk factors, including gestational weight gain, maternal prepregnancy weight, and formula feeding. However, the potential impact of altering these risk factors remains to be evaluated. In response to this problem, we suggest a new, multiphase method for accomplishing this, including screening intervention components, refining intervention designs and confirming component efficacy to build and evaluate potent, optimized interventions.

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Prevention in the first place: schools a setting for action on physical inactivity.

P-J Naylor, H McKay (2009)

Promoting physical activity has become a priority because of its role in preventing childhood obesity and chronic disease. Ecological approaches that recognise the interaction between individuals and the settings in which they spend their time are currently at the forefront of public health action. Schools have been identified as a key setting for health promotion. An overview of the literature addressed the promotion of physical activity in schools and showed that school-based strategies (elementary or high school) that utilised classroom-based education only did not increase physical activity levels; one notable exception was screen time interventions. Although evidence is sparse, active school models and environmental strategies (interventions that change policy and practice) appear to promote physical activity in elementary schools effectively. There is also strong evidence to support multicomponent models in high schools, particularly models that incorporate a family and community component. An emerging trend is to involve youth in the development and implementation of interventions. In the context of childhood obesity and sedentary lifestyles, modest increases in physical activity levels in school-based trials are important. School initiatives must be supported and reinforced in other community settings. Health professionals play a key role as champions in the community, based on their influence and credibility. Health professionals can lend support to school-based efforts by asking about and emphasising the importance of physical activity with patients, encouraging family-based activities, supporting local schools to adopt an "active school" approach and advocating for support to sustain evidence-based and promising physical activity models within schools.

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Clustering of health-related behaviors, health outcomes and demographics in Dutch adolescents: a cross-sectional study

Vincent Busch, Henk F van Stel, Augustinus Schrijvers … (2013)

Background Recent studies show several health-related behaviors to cluster in adolescents. This has important implications for public health. Interrelated behaviors have been shown to be most effectively targeted by multimodal interventions addressing wider-ranging improvements in lifestyle instead of via separate interventions targeting individual behaviors. However, few previous studies have taken into account a broad, multi-disciplinary range of health-related behaviors and connected these behavioral patterns to health-related outcomes. This paper presents an analysis of the clustering of a broad range of health-related behaviors with relevant demographic factors and several health-related outcomes in adolescents. Methods Self-report questionnaire data were collected from a sample of 2,690 Dutch high school adolescents. Behavioral patterns were deducted via Principal Components Analysis. Subsequently a Two-Step Cluster Analysis was used to identify groups of adolescents with similar behavioral patterns and health-related outcomes. Results Four distinct behavioral patterns describe the analyzed individual behaviors: 1- risk-prone behavior, 2- bully behavior, 3- problematic screen time use, and 4- sedentary behavior. Subsequent cluster analysis identified four clusters of adolescents. Multi-problem behavior was associated with problematic physical and psychosocial health outcomes, as opposed to those exerting relatively few unhealthy behaviors. These associations were relatively independent of demographics such as ethnicity, gender and socio-economic status. Conclusions The results show that health-related behaviors tend to cluster, indicating that specific behavioral patterns underlie individual health behaviors. In addition, specific patterns of health-related behaviors were associated with specific health outcomes and demographic factors. In general, unhealthy behavior on account of multiple health-related behaviors was associated with both poor psychosocial and physical health. These findings have significant meaning for future public health programs, which should be more tailored with use of such knowledge on behavioral clustering via e.g. Transfer Learning.

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Author and article information

Contributors

Anna-Karin Lindqvist: Role: Senior Lecturer

Catrine Kostenius: Role: Assistant Professor

Gunvor Gard: Role: Professor

Stina Rutberg: Role: Senior Lecturer

Journal

Journal ID (nlm-ta): Int J Qual Stud Health Well-being

Journal ID (iso-abbrev): Int J Qual Stud Health Well-being

Journal ID (publisher-id): QHW

Title: International Journal of Qualitative Studies on Health and Well-being

Publisher: Co-Action Publishing

ISSN (Print): 1748-2623

ISSN (Electronic): 1748-2631

Publication date (Electronic): 14 August 2015

Publication date Collection: 2015

Volume: 10

Electronic Location Identifier: 10.3402/qhw.v10.27397

Affiliations

Department of Health Sciences, Luleå University of Technology, Luleå, Sweden

Author notes

[* ]Correspondence: A.-K. Lindqvist, Department of Health Sciences, Luleå University of Technology, SE-971 87 Luleå, Sweden. E-mail: anna-karin.lindqvist@ 123456ltu.se

Responsible Editor: Soly Erlandsson, University West, Sweden.

Article

Publisher ID: 27397

DOI: 10.3402/qhw.v10.27397

PMC ID: 4539395

PubMed ID: 26282870

SO-VID: 2925a4cf-3d9d-47c5-bac6-8f1cb8bcbbee

License:

This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, allowing third parties to copy and redistribute the material in any medium or format and to remix, transform, and build upon the material for any purpose, even commercially, provided the original work is properly cited and states its license.

Parent participation plays an important part in promoting physical activity

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International Journal of Management Studies

Most cited references 27

Preventing childhood obesity: what works?

Prevention in the first place: schools a setting for action on physical inactivity.

Clustering of health-related behaviors, health outcomes and demographics in Dutch adolescents: a cross-sectional study

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