Physical Activity Among Israeli-Arab Adolescent Males: How Do Parenting Styles Matter?

Physical activity contains many benefits for adolescents’ physical and mental health, and also for building healthy living routines and habits for the future. The current study examined the associations between parenting styles and adolescents’ physical activity among Israeli-Arab families of male adolescents, in seeking to boost the limited information on this most important topic. Participants consisted of 177 male Israeli-Arab adolescents (M = 13.93, SD = 1.42) with normal weight. Controlling for the participants’ age, weight, and grades in school, parenting styles explained about 30% of the variance in the participants’ reports of their physical activity, with the authoritative and authoritarian parenting inversely correlated with the latter variable. Adolescents who perceived their parents as authoritative were reportedly more physically active than their counterparts who perceived their parents as authoritarian. In common with previous studies, the findings suggest that authoritative parenting may be a cross-culturally preferable style in fostering a desired physical activity rate among adolescents.