BACKGROUND: The main aim of this study was to quantify the associations between parents' and children's physical activity by age, gender, and the day of the week on the basis of a pedometer-measured step count (SC). METHODS: The sample comprised data from 4-to 16-year-old children and their parents from the Czech Republic (1102 mother-child dyads and 693 father-child dyads). The parents and their children wore the Yamax SW200 pedometer during seven days of monitoring. RESULTS: The strongest SC association was found between mothers and daughters aged 4-7.9 years on weekdays (rp = 0.402; p < 0.01) and at weekends (rp = 0.577; p < 0.01). In children aged 8-16, the parent-child association is gender-specific, with the father-son relationship being dominant, especially at weekends (weekend SC: fathers-sons8-11.9 y rp = 0.416, p < 0.01; fathers-sons12-16 y rp = 0.443, p < 0.01). An increase of 1000 steps in the fathers (mothers) is associated with an increase of more than 400 (200) steps in their sons (daughters). CONCLUSIONS: This study confirms a strong parent-child SC relationship in children younger than eight years of age. In older children, the parent-child SC association is gender-specific and dominated by the father-son relationship, particularly on weekends. The SC associations that are revealed can be used for the development of physical activity programs for adolescents.

Faculty of Physical Culture Palacký University Olomouc 771 47 Olomouc Czech Republic

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