Parenting profiles: motivation toward health-oriented physical activity and intention to be physically active

INTRODUCTION: Parents influence their sons’ and daughters’ interest in practicing and maintaining physical activity through parenting patterns. OBJECTIVE: To identify perceived parenting style profiles and examine whether the participants differed in their motivation toward health-oriented physical activity and the intention to be physically active. METHOD: A sample of 296 participants completed a series of self-report measures and a latent profile analysis (LPA) was performed. RESULTS: Two profiles emerged as the most suitable: profile (a) with average scores in parenting variables, and profile (b) with high scores in parenting variables. The results revealed significant differences in integrated regulation and in amotivation, reporting higher scores for profile (b) in the parenting variables love/affection, hostility/aggression, and indifference/neglect, and average in undifferentiated/rejection and control. CONCLUSION: The combination of perceived parenting style variables in the profiles seems to influence people’s motivation toward health-oriented physical activity. As such, it is crucial to understand parenting from a multivariate approach, mostly in interventions to adjust parenting styles to the most suitable combination.