Impact of self-efficacy and parenting practice on physical activity among school children

As insufficient engagement in physical activity (PA) is becoming a major health concern in Thailand, we aimed to investigate the impact of parenting practices and children’s self-efficacy on a child’s PA level and further in the subgroups, stratified by the child’s sex and weight status. A total of 609 primary school children recruited by cluster sampling in two schools were asked to complete questionnaires, and general familial factors and parenting practice related to activities were completed by parents. Multivariate linear regressions were conducted to calculate the standardized beta-coefficients (β). Children’s PA level was positively related to greater support seeking self-efficacy (β=0.281) for engaging in PA, and parenting practices, including less limit setting (β=–0.124) and more discipline (β=0.147) in the total sample. In the analyses of subgroups by a child’s sex and weight status, parenting practice, such as less limit setting and discipline played a more important role in children’s PA in normal weight children and girls as taking account of around 10% of variance of the child’s PA, while only seeking support self-efficacy showed great impact in overweight children and boys. In conclusion, impacts of children’s self-efficacy and parenting practices on children’s PA were different by child’s sex and weight status. This can suggest that future interventions to increase children’s PA might need to consider different strategies to increase children’s self-efficacy as well as parenting strategies when targeting different groups of children.