How to Get Your Kids to Exercise

Feb. 17, 2011— -- There's been alarming talk for years about the rising rate of childhood obesity in this country. Which is why it's so odd that there's been relatively little focus on how parents influence their kids' exercising habits. Researcher Sarah L. Lee, PhD, and colleagues at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta recently delved into the intersections between parents, children, and exercise.

"We looked at all sorts of things that might affect activity levels of parents and kids, including cultural, environmental, psychosocial, and demographic factors," says Lee. "We tried to pinpoint how all of these affected 'co-physical activity,' which is the term for parents being active with their children. We found some surprising things."

Lee and her team analyzed data on children and exercise from a national survey of 5,177 parent-child pairings. The children ranged from 9 to 13 years old. The survey asked both parents and children a wide variety of questions, including how they felt about health and physical activity, how much time they spent hanging out together, if they tended to eat meals as a family, if the child played organized sports, if the child generally felt supported by the parent, and, of course, how often the parent and child exercised together.

The good-news finding was that 78 percent of the parent-child pairings reported being active together at least once a week. The not-so-good news: 22 percent of the pairings reported no shared physical activity whatsoever.

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