Parents And Children's Physical Activities

Parents play a crucial role in the development of their children’s physical activity and health. As a child is developing throughout their youth, they are known to be impacted by their parent’s physical activity. Studies have shown that a child is 5.8% more likely to be physically active when both parents are active compared to parents who choose not to be active. “Possible mechanisms for the relationship between parents’ and child’s activity levels include the parents’ serving as role models, sharing of activities by family members, enhancement and support by active parents of their child’s participation in physical activity, and genetically transmitted factors that predispose the child to increased levels of physical activity” (Moore, Lombardi,

The best place for this is to go to a location where children and their parents can be found engaging in some type of physical activity. The site chosen was a local soccer field where children of all ages were spread out on multiple fields playing soccer games. The crowd spectating was filled with parents, grandparents and siblings of the children playing the games. The style of dress mainly consisted of casual outfits with some spectators wearing athletic apparel and others wearing a dressier outfit as if they had plans to go out to eat after the games. The younger age groups that were playing had parents that seemed more relaxed during the game and the children on the field tended to lose focus on the game at times and look at their families. The age groups of the older children between 10-12 had family members that were more engaged in cheering and a few spectators would get out of their seats at exciting moments. The older children also rarely looked at their parents except when there was a stoppage in the game. In all of the games going on, it was common for the children to look at the crowd of spectators and their family members after they did something good or scored a goal. A few parents in the older children’s game were getting too into the game at times

The goal was to find out if the parent encouraged their child to be physically active, if the parent was physically active, does the parent ever do physical activities with their child and also do they think their child enjoys playing an organized sport. The first parent I approached was Melanie, who had a 10-year-old daughter Reagan playing. Melanie and I talked briefly about the game, things that were happening in the game and also a few of the questions I had for her. When asked if she encouraged Reagan to be physically active, Melanie informed me that, “Reagan is always running around outside, jumping on the trampoline, playing with the dog and doing kid things in the yard with her friends”. Melanie then continued on about the subject and ended up answering my other question without me even asking it. “Me and my sisters like to do the Charleston bridge run every year. So recently I have been running to train for it so I can beat all of them. Reagan loves to run with me though. Sometimes she will ride her bike while I run”. Melanie and I then started talking more about running and this opened up the conversation for my next question. The next question was the most important one in my opinion and it was whether or not she hoped Reagan stayed physically active in the future. Melanie seemed that she was enthusiastic about exercise and this question really