Under the influence of parents: A longitudinal study of children's walking

Introduction

As daily physical activities, including active transportation, improve children's health, studying predictors of children's walking for all purposes rather than just walking to and from school is necessary. Relationships between the behavior, perceptions, and attitudes of children and their parents (or guardians) about walking are important because children's decisions about travel are not made independently of the influence of their parents or guardians. In addition, findings from cross-sectional studies may not be sufficient to explain children's walking since their relationship is persistent. Therefore, we examined the longitudinal relationship between children's and parents' perceptions and walking behavior.

Methods

We used two-wave panel data of 182 children aged 4–16 and their parents in Portland, Oregon, USA. We estimated a cross-lagged panel model (CLPM) to analyze the continuous relationships between children's and parent's perceptions and walking behaviors. Data were collected through surveys, accelerometers, and GPS units.

Results

We found that when parents walked more, their children also walked more in both periods. Parents' positive safety perceptions about their children's walking environment in terms of strangers and traffic significantly increased children's walking time. Children's safety perceptions (only in the second period) and time-related perceived behavioral control (in both periods) affected their attitude toward walking but not walking time.

Conclusion

Our study reveals meaningful relationships between the attitudes and behaviors of parents' and children's walking based on repeated observations over two years. Given our results, neighborhoods that are good for parents to walk in positively affect children's walking. Parental walking needs to precede to encourage continuous children's walking.