Are parents’ motivations to exercise and intention to engage in regular family-based activity associated with both adult and child physical activity?

Background/Aim: To examine the associations between parents’ motivation to exercise andintention to engage in family-based activity with their own and their child’s physical activity.Methods: Cross-sectional data from 1,067 parent-child pairs (76.1% mother-child); childrenwere aged 5-6 years. Parents reported their exercise motivation (i.e., intrinsic motivation,identified regulation, introjected regulation, external regulation & amotivation) as describedin self-determination theory and their intention to engage in family-based activity. Parents’and children’s mean minutes of moderate-to-vigorous-intensity physical activity (MVPA) and mean counts per minute were derived from ActiGraph accelerometers worn for 3 to 5 days (including a mixture of week days and weekend days). Multivariable linear regressionmodels, adjusted for parent sex, number of children, indices of multiple deprivation, andclustering of children in schools were used to examine associations (total of 24 associationstested).Results: In fully-adjusted models, each unit increase in identified regulation was associatedwith a 6.08 (95% CI: 3.27 to 8.89, p