@article{ref1,
title="Association of father involvement and neighborhood quality with kindergartners' physical activity: a multilevel structural equation model",
journal="American journal of health promotion",
year="2008",
author="Beets, Michael W. and Foley, John T.",
volume="22",
number="3",
pages="195-203",
abstract="PURPOSE: Examine the effects of father-child involvement and neighborhood characteristics with young children's physical activity (PA) within a multilevel framework. DESIGN: Cross-sectional analysis of the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study-Kindergarten Cohort 1998. SETTING: Nationally representative sample. SUBJECTS: Data were available for 10,694 kindergartners (5-6 years; 5240 girls) living in 1053 neighborhoods. MEASURES: Parental report of child's PA level, father characteristics (e.g., time spent with child, age, education, socioeconomic status, hours worked), family time spent doing sports/ activities together, and neighborhood quality (e.g., safety, presence of crime violence, garbage). Child weight status, motor skills, ethnicity, and television viewing were used as covariates. ANALYSIS: Multilevel structural equation modeling with children nested within neighborhoods. RESULTS: At the child level father-child time and family time doing sports together were positively associated with children's PA. At the neighborhood level parental perception of a neighborhood's safety for children to play outside fully mediated the effect of neighborhood quality on children's PA. Overall 19.1% and 7.6% of the variance in PA was explained at the child and neighborhood levels, respectively. CONCLUSIONS: Family-based interventions for PA should consider father-child time, with this contributing to a child's overall PA level. Further, neighborhood quality is an important predictor of PA only to the extent by which parents perceive it to be unsafe for their child to play outdoors.<p /><p>Language: en</p>",
language="en",
issn="0890-1171",
doi="",
url="http://dx.doi.org/"
}