engleski

Parents’ attitudes towards physical activity of preschool children

A part of responsibly for widespread physical inactivity and obesity epidemics lies on parents and their lifestyle choices that are observed and followed by their children. The aim of this study is to investigate what are parents’ attitudes towards physical activity and what are some of the reasons parents are struggling to meet their children minimal physical activity requirements. Altogether 1271 preschool children’s parents were asked to fill in on-line questionnaire at their convenience examining their attitude toward physical activity of their children. The questionnaire comprised 19 items asking participants to state their agreement with proposed claims. Descriptive statistics was used to present the results in each item, exploratory factor analysis (EFA) was conducted using a principal components method to uncover the underlying structure and univariate analysis of variance with Bonferroni post-hoc test was used to determine differences in a questionnaire items between parents of different age. Statistical significance level was set to p<0.05. Results of present study showed that parents have positive attitude towards physical activity of their children. They find physical activity worthwhile and not less important than computer literacy. They encourage their children to be physically active and often visit playgrounds and parks. Parents often spend free time with their children in the outdoors but they generally not pay attention on their own diet and they exercise less than 3 times per week. Children look up to their parents and role model their behaviors based on actions of their parents. Even when parents are providing the opportunities to eat healthy and be physically active, if they are not personally doing it children might still acquire unhealthy habits. Present study’s results indicate that younger parents note financial constraints as obstacle for their children participation in sport programs in higher degree that older parents (F=6.293, p=0.002) but they spend more free time with their children in outdoors (F=10.802, p=0.000) and have more time for physical activity with their children due to business obligation (F=8.294, p=0.00). Older parents seem to acknowledge the risks of physical inactivity in higher degree than younger parents (F=6.640, p=0.001).

physical acitivity ; parents ; preschool children ; interventions

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