Association Between Children’S Screen Time And Parent’S Sitting Time In Puerto Rico

Increasing physical activity (PA) and reducing sedentary behavior are both important factors to improve children’s health. Screen time (ST) is one of the principal sedentary behaviors among children. Although, it is well known that parents strongly influence children’s PA behavior; less about parental sedentary behavior influence on children’s screen time. PURPOSE: To evaluate the association between parents’ sedentary behavior and children’s ST during weekdays. METHODS: A group of 109 children (50 girls, 59 boys), with a mean age of 7.0 years, completed a 24-hr PA questionnaire during 2 weekdays including the time spent sitting in front of a screen (TV, computer, videogames). Parents’ sedentary behavior (sitting time) was obtained using the International Physical Activity Questionnaire (IPAQ). Descriptive statistics were performed for each variable of interest. T-test was used to detect gender differences, and Pearson Correlation and linear regression was used to evaluate the association between children’s ST and parent’s sitting time. RESULTS: Parent’s sitting time was 7.9±5.8 hr/day, and children’s screen time was 1.7±2.1 hr/day, respectively. No screen time gender differences were detected, and no association was observed between children’s ST and parent’s sitting time (r= -0.01, P=0.463). CONCLUSIONS:Parental sitting time does not influence children’s ST; therefore, interventions to reduce screen time among children should not emphasize on parental sedentary behavior role modeling. Funded by the University of PR -FIPI Institutional Grant.