ReviewA birth of inactivity? A review of physical activity and parenthood
Introduction
Moderate physical activity (PA) is a key component in maintaining one's health and quality of life, while inactivity is associated with increased levels of mortality and chronic disease (Center for Disease Control and Prevention, 2005). Despite the public and academic awareness of these benefits, PA participation remains low in North America (Center for Disease Control and Prevention, 2005, Canadian Fitness and Lifestyle Research Institute, 2002). Certain socio-demographic groups are less likely to be active. For example, inactivity is associated with lower levels of income and education and women are more likely to be inactive than their male counterparts, however, both sexes tend to exercise less as they age (CDC, 2005). An understanding of demographic groups with low PA prevalence is important to establish direction in tailored public health PA interventions.
One specific demographic that may be at a high risk of inactivity is parents with dependent children. Parenthood is a major life event that requires considerable lifestyle changes and thus could be associated with a general decline in PA. There appears to be a decrease in total number of physical activities people are involved in during the childbearing years and an increase in obesity (Nielsen et al., 2006). For example, data on the prevalence of PA suggests there is a deflection curve in decreased PA levels and increased BMI during childbearing years (Association of Canadian Studies, 2005, Myers et al., 1989, Leslie et al., 2001, Nielsen et al., 2006), that is to say that there is a noticeable change at this point after which PA and BMI do not return to their original levels. This is supported by research that shows PA decreases during the perinatal period (Pereira et al., 2007), new mothers are often inactive in the postpartum months (Gennaro and Fehder, 2000), and that there may be unique psychosocial predictors of exercise among new and expectant mothers (Hinton and Olson, 2001). Other qualitative research argues that changes to exercise patterns across the transition to motherhood vary depending on pre-pregnancy activity levels and life experience (Devine et al., 2000). Other aspects of parenthood may also affect population PA. For example, parents are central agents in the socialization and development of PA behavior patterns in their children (Gustafson and Rhodes, 2006, Moore et al., 1991) and a decline in the PA of parents may be central to family inactivity. Given this information, understanding PA among early parenthood may be important for future health promotion endeavors.
Section snippets
Objective
To our knowledge, no existing review of PA and parenthood has been conducted. Given the importance of this life-event and the health consequences associated with it, a review is warranted. Thus, the purpose of this narrative review is to unite and discuss the existing literature focusing on parenthood and PA, identify central common subtopics, and to provide a platform for future research.
Data sources
This review, completed in July 2007, includes a total of 31 peer-reviewed studies obtained through systematic database searches, and manual cross-referencing of bibliographies. The databases used included: Web of Science, Academic Elite, PsycInfo, Medline, and PubMed, representing databases from multiple disciplines related to health and physical activity. Search terms included various combinations of the key words physical activity, exercise, activity, health AND parents, dependents,
Study characteristics
Of the 25 independent samples, 16 were cross-sectional, 4 were longitudinal, and 5 were intervention-based. Seventeen samples focused on female participants, only 1 was based solely on fathers, and 7 included both male and female parents (see Table 1). The 25 samples yielded 64,694 participants, with sample sizes ranging from 32 to 24,454 participants; of the total sample size, 16,709 were male and 47,985 were female. Participants ranged in age from 18 to 65, though studies with older adults
Conclusion
The purpose of this review was to unite the existing literature regarding parenthood and PA. Common subtopics were highlighted and discussed to illustrate some of the emerging findings and provide direction for future research. The central findings in this review show that parents, in particular mothers, are at high risk for inactivity. Though effect sizes were considerably heterogeneous, the summary effects were within the small–medium range, thus demonstrating that parenthood may be a very
Acknowledgments
Kai H. Bellows-Riecken is supported by a Michael Smith Foundation for Health Research (University of Victoria) Graduate Fellowship. Ryan E. Rhodes is supported by a scholar award from the Michael Smith Foundation for Health Research, a new investigator award from the Canadian Institutes of Health Research, and with funds from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada and the Human Early Learning Partnership.
References (52)
The theory of planned behavior
Organ. Behav. Hum. Decis. Process
(1991)- et al.
Life transitions and changing physical activity patterns in young women
Am. J. Prev. Med.
(2003) - et al.
Changes in health-related behaviours and cardiovascular risk factors in young adults: associations with living with a partner
Prev. Med.
(2004) - et al.
Occupation, hours worked, and leisure time physical activity.
Prev. Med.
(2000) - et al.
Continuity and change in women's weight orientations and lifestyle practices through pregnancy and the postpartum period: the influence of life course trajectories and transitional events
Soc. Sci. Med.
(2000) - et al.
Postpartum exercise and food intake: the importance of behavior-specific self-efficacy
J. Am. Diet. Assoc.
(2001) - et al.
Mediators of physical activity behavior change among women with young children
Am. J. Prev. Med.
(2002) - et al.
Influence of parents' physical activity levels on activity levels of young children
J. Pediatr.
(1991) - et al.
Physical activity patterns in a diverse population of women
Prev. Med.
(1999) Part One: Who is the most active of us all?
(2005)