The validity of parental-reported body height and weight: a comparison with objective measurements of 7-8-year-old Czech children

Parent-Child Associations in Accelerometer-Measured Physical Activity and Sedentary Behaviour: The FAMIPASS Study

Parent-child patterns in objectively measured movement behaviours were the highlight of this study. A total of 381 families (337 mothers, 256 fathers, 190 daughters, and 191 sons) from 36 randomly selected schools and kindergartens provided valid accelerometer data. Sedentary behaviour and physical activity (PA) were assessed using ActiGraph accelerometers. Spearman's rho was used to evaluate parent-child associations, while logistic regression analysis (the backward LR method) was used to recognize factors related to children's achievement of PA recommendations. Results indicated that girls engaged more in light PA, while boys showed higher levels of moderate and vigorous PA. Mothers spent less time sitting and more time in light PA compared to fathers, resulting in higher total PA levels. Father-son pairs showed a stronger association in total PA than mother-son pairs. Children aged 6-10 years and those with mothers who engaged in more vigorous PA were more likely to meet PA recommendations compared to younger children and those with less active mothers.

FAMIly Physical Activity, Sedentary behaviour and Sleep (FAMIPASS) study: protocol for a cross-sectional study

INTRODUCTION

The development of children's healthy and active lifestyles, including habit formation for optimal 24-hour movement behaviour, is associated with their family environment. A whole-family study collecting comprehensive data that can evaluate family lifestyle behaviours in different settings in depth has the potential to provide the evidence-based information needed for national guidelines, for designing interventions and for supporting policy-makers' decisions.

METHODS AND ANALYSIS

The FAMIly Physical Activity, Sedentary behaviour and Sleep (FAMIPASS) study is a nationally representative cross-sectional study that will recruit 500 families (with at least 1 child aged between 3 and 8 years) from the urban and rural parts of all three regions of the Czech Republic. To examine the relationship between family environment and children's healthy development (eg, healthy weight) and children's active lifestyle behaviour, anthropometric measures, parents' health-related behaviour (including dietary habits, alcohol and tobacco use, screen time and bedtime rules and 24-hour movement behaviour), socioeconomic data and data about the characteristics of the home and neighbourhood will be collected from parents and children. The 24-hour movement behaviour (eg, sleep, sedentary behaviour and physical activity) will be monitored using wGT3X-BT and GT9X Link ActiGraph accelerometers placed on the non-dominant wrist of the children and their parents for 7 consecutive days. The accelerometers will be set up for each family separately, using the group proximity mode, allowing proximity tagging between devices and establishing the time spent together and parent-child coactivities.

ETHICS AND DISSEMINATION

The overarching methodological protocol of the FAMIPASS project was approved by the Ethics Committee of the Faculty of Physical Culture, Palacký University Olomouc, Czech Republic (reference number: 25/2021). The results and findings will be reported to: (1) the participating families and (2) school representatives and will be (3) presented at national and international conferences and (4) disseminated via peer-reviewed publications.

Sex differences in younger school age children’s body weight categories

The issue of inadequate or excessive children’s body weight, particularly in relation to their health, is also discussed by Czech experts in physical anthropology, auxology, paediatrics, endocrinology, etc. Overweight and obesity occur already at a younger school age, and some domestic and foreign sources report a higher prevalence in boys.

The objective of this study was to describe distribution range in body weight categories among Czech children of younger school age (6 to 11 years) taking into account age and sex.

Our research was carried out at 23 primary schools in 5 regions of the Czech Republic between 2014 and 2018. The research group consisted of 2,099 children aged 6 to 11 years (boys n = 1,015, 48.4%; girls n = 1,084, 51.6%). Probands were subjected to the standard anthropometric examination with body weight being assessed using the following assessment standards: the Czech national growth references, Nationwide Anthropological Survey of Czech Children and Adolescents (NAS), World Health Organisation (WHO) growth standards, and International Obesity Task Force (IOTF) references were used. Statistical tests were carried out at a significance level of p ≤ 0.05; residual analysis.

According to all three assessment standards, the highest prevalence of children with normal body weight was in both sexes; 45.8% of girls and 48.4% of boys, using the Czech assessment reference. Overweight and obesity were more predominant in boys (7.9% and 8.7%) than in girls (7.7% and 7.5%). One point seven percent of boys and girls were equally underweight, whereas the percentage of girls (22.3%) with reduced body weight was higher than in boys (20.3%). A significant difference between boys and girls was found in the category of reduced body weight in nine-year-old children. Using internationally recommended BMI references, more children fell into the category of normal body weight. Significant differences, in accordance with IOTF, between the number of severely underweight boys and girls were observed in 7-year-olds, slightly underweight in 9- and 11-year-olds, and overweight in 7-year-olds. In accordance with the WHO growth standards, significant differences appeared between eight-year-olds and eleven-year-olds obese boys and girls.

Our research study revealed the prevalence in younger school age children body weight categories. Different BMI references were used to classify body weight. Significant differences between the number of boys and girls were observed in certain weight categories in seven-year-old, eight-year-old, nine-year-old and eleven-year-old children. Thus, the study confirmed the presence of differences in the number of boys and girls in specific body weight categories.

Parent-Child Physical Activity Association in Families With 4-to 16-Year-Old Children

Background: The main aim of this study was to quantify the associations between parents’ and children’s physical activity by age, gender, and the day of the week on the basis of a pedometer-measured step count (SC). Methods: The sample comprised data from 4-to 16-year-old children and their parents from the Czech Republic (1102 mother-child dyads and 693 father-child dyads). The parents and their children wore the Yamax SW200 pedometer during seven days of monitoring. Results: The strongest SC association was found between mothers and daughters aged 4–7.9 years on weekdays (r_p = 0.402; p < 0.01) and at weekends (r_p = 0.577; p < 0.01). In children aged 8–16, the parent-child association is gender-specific, with the father-son relationship being dominant, especially at weekends (weekend SC: fathers-sons_{8–11.9 y} r_p = 0.416, p < 0.01; fathers-sons_{12–16 y} r_p = 0.443, p < 0.01). An increase of 1000 steps in the fathers (mothers) is associated with an increase of more than 400 (200) steps in their sons (daughters). Conclusions: This study confirms a strong parent-child SC relationship in children younger than eight years of age. In older children, the parent-child SC association is gender-specific and dominated by the father-son relationship, particularly on weekends. The SC associations that are revealed can be used for the development of physical activity programs for adolescents.