Research articleNeighborhood and Parental Supports for Physical Activity in Minority Adolescents
Introduction
The prevalence of childhood obesity has increased dramatically in the past 3 decades, with 35% of adolescents and 40% of minority youth classified as overweight or obese nationally.1 It is estimated that less than one third of adolescents are sufficiently active to benefit their health and that this is attributed to increasingly sedentary lifestyles.2 The declining prevalence of physical activity may be attributable to the increasing prevalence of obesity and chronic disease in youth.3 The present study was designed to increase understanding of how parents, home, and the neighborhood environmental supports may influence physical activity in underserved adolescents (low income, ethnic minorities) as part of the “Active by Choice Today” (ACT) physical activity trial.4, 5
There is a growing interest in the application of ecologic models in understanding health behaviors such as physical activity.6, 7 An ecologic approach assumes that health is shaped by environmental subsystems including intrapersonal factors (individual characteristics); interpersonal processes and primary groups (formal and informal social networks); institutional factors (social institutions); community factors (neighborhood supports); and public policy. Recent studies8, 9, 10 go beyond the measurement of perceptions of neighborhood access and safety and include the direct measurement of neighborhood attributes related to physical activity. The ecologic framework in this study conceptualizes behavioral levels of influence at the neighborhood, home, and parental levels related to understanding physical activity in underserved adolescents.
At the family level of the ecologic model, this study examined the impact of family social support on adolescent physical activity. Past studies11, 12, 13, 14 have demonstrated that parental social support is an important factor associated with physical activity in youth. Biddle13 demonstrated in a trial of multi-ethnic adolescents that vigorous physical activity was predicted by direct paths from adult encouragement. Prochaska and colleagues12 showed that 12% of the variance in predicting accelerometer estimates of physical activity was accounted for by parent and peer support in a sample of multi-ethnic adolescents. Adkins et al.14 also found that tangible parental support was associated with greater physical activity in African-American girls.
At the home and neighborhood level of the ecologic model, this study examined parental perceptions of access and safety for home and neighborhood supports for physical activity. Few studies15, 16 have focused on evaluating the relationship between home and neighborhood environmental supports for physical activity in adolescents. In a study by Loureiro et al.,16 perceptions of unsafe neighborhoods and lack of access for leisure-time physical activity were associated with lower levels of physical activity among adolescents. Mota17 also reported that more-active children reported higher importance of having accessibility to neighborhoods with recreational facilities. In a qualitative study by Hume et al.,18 themes emerged with respect to physical activity including valuing the family home, opportunities for physical activity, green space and outside areas, the school, and opportunities for social interaction.
The present study expanded on previous research by evaluating environmental supports for physical activity using an ecologic model that integrates neighborhood, home, and parental supports for physical activity in underserved adolescents in the ACT trial. Little past research has examined environmental supports within the context of an ongoing intervention. In the present study, a parental survey was developed to assess parenting styles and perceptions of social and environmental supports for physical activity in the home and neighborhood to determine if these factors would more strongly predict increases in physical activity in the intervention compared with the control school adolescents.
Section snippets
Participants
The study was a secondary data analysis of a randomized controlled school-based trial “Active by Choice Today” (ACT) for increasing physical activity in underserved sixth-graders. Schools were matched on school size, percentage minorities, percentage receiving free or reduced-price lunch, and urban or rural setting prior to randomization. This study used a randomly selected sample of parents (n=280) from the intervention and control schools whose adolescent was enrolled in larger trial.19
Demographics and Baseline Characteristics
Demographic characteristics are depicted in Table 1. A significant difference was found for neighborhood support between intervention and control groups (p<0.05), with the intervention adolescent parents reporting higher levels of neighborhood support. Table 2 depicts the means and SDs of the home and environmental supports for physical activity across intervention versus control schools. There were no significant group differences.
To assess the degree to which the subsample of ACT participants
Discussion
The results of the current study demonstrated the importance of parent and neighborhood levels of support for physical activity in underserved adolescents. Parental and neighborhood supports for physical activity were significant predictors of physical activity in adolescents who participated in the ACT trial. In addition, physical activity was negatively correlated with being female and with higher BMI in the present study consistent with previous studies. Interestingly, there were no
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