Parenting style associated with sedentary behaviour in preschool children

Abstract

There is an absence of studies exploring the relationship between parental style and sedentary behaviour in preschool-aged children. Given the link between parenting style and other health behaviours, and given that preschool children engage in relatively high levels of sedentary behaviour, this study's purpose was to examine if a preschool child's time spent in sedentary activity (i.e. ‘screen-based’ media viewing and quiet play) differed by parenting style and if the behaviour differed between weekdays and weekends. Results showed that parenting style significantly differed for screen-viewing on weekdays (p = 0.004, η ² = 0.07) and weekends (p = 0.003, η ² = 0.07), with preschool children of parents employing an authoritative parenting style engaging in the least amount of screen-time. No differences were observed for quiet play. In addition, the authoritative parenting style was a significant predictor of screen-based viewing on weekdays (β = −0.21, p = 0.01) and weekends (β = −0.26, p = 0.002). These preliminary results suggest an association between parenting style and ‘screen-time’ in preschool children.

Keywords:

• family
• parental influence
• physical activity
• quiet play
• screen-time