Parental influences on female adolescents' physical activity: a Singaporean perspective

INTRODUCTION.

Physical activity (PA) has been described as the best buy-in for public health but many young people do not participate in the minimum recommended amount of PA to achieve health benefits. Previous research has identified correlates of PA in young people. Parental correlates, such as logistics support, parental demographics, parents’ health indicators and parenting styles have been found to be associated with the PA of children. However, findings have not been consistent. Furthermore, parental correlates of PA seem to differ largely from population to population (country to country). This thesis, therefore, reports on the prevalence of parental correlates and predictors of youth PA behaviour in Singapore.

AIMS.

Study 1: To review the current published literature on parental correlates of young people’s (aged 3 to 18 years) PA behaviour, with a focus on longitudinal/prospective studies.

Study 2: Aim: To examine the association between parenting styles and practices and Singaporean female adolescents’ PA.

METHODS.

Study 1: A total of 26 studies were identified and reviewed following the procedures recommended by the NHS Centre for Reviews and Dissemination (2001) (in the first publication) and the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) (Moher et al., 2015) (in the update). Key search terms included ’physical activity’, ‘parental influence’, ‘parental correlates’, ‘longitudinal studies’, and ‘prospective studies’. For studies to be included, they were required to (i) include young people of age 3 to 18 years old (or a mean within these ranges); (ii) have a measure of young people’s PA; (iii) use a prospective or longitudinal research design; (iv) measure at least one parental correlate of young people’s PA; (v) be published in a peer reviewed journal in the English language. Studies of cross-sectional research design were excluded. The search was conducted between April to October 2010 and Oct 2018 to Jan 2019 using Google Scholar, Science Direct, PubMed, PsychINFO, Medline and Web of Science.

Study 2: A total of 201 adolescent females (aged 12-18) from a secondary school in Singapore were included in the analyses. Participants completed the Physical Activity Questionnaire for Adolescents (PAQ-A) (Kowalski, Crocker, & Kowalski, 1997) to measure their PA and the ‘Parents As Social Context’ (PASC) scale (Skinner, Johnson, & Snyder, 2005) to measure parenting styles while their parents completed the International Physical Activity Questionnaire (IPAQ) (Craig, 2003) to measure their PA and the Activity Support Scale (ACTS) (Davison, Cutting, & Birch, 2003) to measure the parental support for PA. Sociodemographic data like age, income, race and educational attainment were collected at the same time from the parents.

RESULTS.

Study 1: Parents’ enjoyment of PA, PA self-efficacy, children’s perception of their parents’ PA, parents’ perceived child’s level of competence, child’s perceived autonomy, socio-economic status (SES), parents’ employment status, parent’s PA, parents’ support for PA in terms of logistics, watching the child’s PA and talking about the benefit of PA, maternal education, dual-parent status in the family unit, parenting style, particularly authoritative and neglectful parenting and parent’s rules on PA like where, what type and when can PA take place were all found to be positively associated with adolescents’ PA behaviour. Parents’ barriers to exercise (e.g. lack of time), parents’ employment status, authoritative parenting style and perception of neighbourhood safety were found to be inversely associated with children’s PA.

Study 2: No significant association was found between parenting styles, parenting practices except for demographics factors like father’s income and mother’s education level which has positive relationship. Other relationships found include father’s logistics support and his education level, father’s logistics support and his income, father’s logistics support and his age, father’s modelling and his education level and lastly, mother’s modelling and her education level.

DISCUSSIONS.

Study 1: Recruitment methods of the studies identified could have resulted in sampling bias. Time spent with children and the level of communication between parents and children could potentially determine whether the child is familiar with the parents PA. Measurements of the intensity and types of PA was not consistently reported in all studies and different modes of measurements of PA were used in the different studies identified. The change of era and society trends that could potentially change the results of correlates were not discussed in any of the studies. Child elicitation pathway in PA was only discussed in one of the studies.

Study 2:

Parental influences on female adolescents’ PA are limited to father’s income and mother’s educational level. These factors are supported by longitudinal studies such as those done by Bradley and colleagues (2011) and Morrissey and colleagues (2015). However, due to the small sample size of this study, a bigger sample size of similar research should be conducted and longitudinal follow-up is preferred. Also, other factors influencing female adolescents’ PA should be further explored such as policy and organisational changes in schools and community agencies, and incentivisation programmes in the physical and social environment of the adolescent girls (e.g. longer recess duration during school hours).

CONCLUSION.

To conclude, this thesis found that there was no significant association between parents’ PA, parenting practices, parenting style, modelling, apart from demographic factors like father’s income and mother’s education level. Using the Theory of Planned Behaviour, it was found that adolescent girls need to have “fun” and enjoy themselves, in order to want to engage in PA. They must also see themselves as being good at PA and has high self-efficacy in PA. They would keep away from PA if they were not aware of the benefits of PA and finds PA to cause discomfort like perspiration. Their significant others in influencing PA are not parents, but siblings, friends and PE teachers. Future research should involve a cross-sectional study as a follow-up to study the factors listed above on a larger population in Singapore. A longitudinal study to track the changes in parental correlates over time and to study PA tracking into adulthood is also recommended using subjective measures like accelerometers or even a time use diary. Many angles of correlates of PA such as perception of neighbourhood safety, self-efficacy and PA, effectiveness of PE, should also be looked into. These findings will pave the way for researchers in the field to learn more about the unique factors that induce PA in adolescent girls in Singapore and henceforth contribute to better policy-making in promoting PA for better health.