Parental education and parents' physical activity is associated with physical activity of their children

Today a new paper from the ENERGY study was published in a preliminary version in the journal Preventive Medicine. The Spanish partner in the ENERGY study, i.e. the group of Prof. Luis Moreno from Zaragoza University, took the lead in this paper and David Jimenez Pavon is first author. In the analyses for this paper we sought to examine the independent associations of the level of education of the parents and the levels of physical activity (PA) of parents with PA levels of the children in the ENERGY study across Europe.

As we reported before, a total of 7214 children (10-12years) were recruited from a school-based cross sectional survey during 2010 in seven European countries. Weight and height were measured. Parental educational level and parents' and children´s PA were assessed using questionnaires. We found that parents education level and parents PA levels are both indeed associated with the children´s PA: children of lower educated and less active parents have lower levels of PA. However, the relationships were gender and country-specific; in some countries the association was more apparent than in others and in some countries associations ere stronger for boys than girls or vice versa. In promoting PA among school-aged children, level of education of the parents and their PA levels should be taken into account.