Correlates of psychosocial factors influencing children's participation in physical activity

The present study utilized the Youth Physical Activity Promotion (YPAP) model as the theoretical framework to identify the relationships among the psychosocial correlates of the Chinese children's physical activity participation. Participants were 872 school children aged between 10-13 recruited from 10 primary schools. A 35-item Chinese version of the Children Physical Activity Questionnaire (CPAQ-C) modified from the Children's Physical Activity Correlates (Welk et al., 2003) was adopted as the measurement instrument. Within the CPAQ-C, three sub-scales were used to assess children's psychosocial correlates to physical activity participation (i.e., Physical Activity Perception [PAP], Physical Self-Perception [PSP] and Parental Influence [PILAF]), and children's physical activity level was assessed by a self-report recall questionnaire (i.e., the 3 Day Physical Activity Recall [3DPAR]). Structural equation modeling (SEM) was applied for the data analysis. The findings of the present study suggested that children with a positive perception on physical activity and a positive physical self-perception were those who participated more in physical activity. Moreover, there was a high direct effect from children's physical activity perception to their physical self-perception, which suggested that the foci of a children's physical activity promotion intervention program design should place more emphasis on the elevation of children's perception of physical activity. Being a reinforcing factor to children's physical activity participation, parental influence was found to have directly and indirectly affected children's physical activity behavior through the influence (1) by children's physical activity perception and (2) by children's physical self-perception. Finally, the structural model analysis for both genders revealed a gender difference among the psychosocial variables of the children's physical activity participation.