Dyadic Effects of Pokémon GO on Physical Activity and Sedentary Behavior in Mothers and Children

International Journal of Exercise Science 15(5): 142-151, 2021. Family-based mobile health applications may be an opportunity to increase children’s physical activity (PA) levels. Researchers have highlighted Pokémon GO as a potential model for future PA interventions as it integrates PA with social gamification. This study provides descriptive data on Pokémon GO usage among mothers and their children and examines differences in moderate to vigorous PA (MVPA) over time among individuals playing Pokémon GO compared to non-players using a dyadic subsample from a three-year longitudinal study. After the release of Pokémon Go in July 2016, 156 mother-child dyads completed questionnaires about Pokémon Go usage and wore accelerometers continuously for seven days at baseline (Sep 2016), six months, and twelve months. Independent sample t-tests and chi-square tests were used to investigate differences in demographics and daily MVPA by player status cross-sectionally at each time point. At baseline, six mothers and 21 children reported playing Pokémon Go. Baseline demographic characteristics were not associated with player status. Across time, mothers engaged in an average of 21.12 minutes of daily MVPA (SD = 19.7) and children in 29.35 minutes (SD = 18.88). Children’s daily MVPA did not differ by player status, but mothers who reported playing engaged in higher daily MVPA (M = 46.84, SD = 38.07) compared to non-players (M = 21.40, SD = 23.31). This naturalistic study lacked power to further analyze changes in MVPA after the release of the game due to lack of engagement with Pokémon GO. Understanding how to design a family-oriented game to bring together gamification, physical activity, and family-based interventions will be important for future public health efforts

Mother-child Dyadic Influences of Affect on Everyday Movement Behaviors: Evidence from an Ecological Momentary Assessment Study

Background Research has shown that affect is associated with everyday movement behaviors in children and adults. However, limited work to date has investigated dyadic influences of momentary affect on moderate-to-vigorous physical activity (MVPA) and sedentary time among children and their mothers using ecological momentary assessment (EMA). Methods Mothers and their children (eight to 12-years-old at baseline) from the Los Angeles metropolitan area participated in a longitudinal study with six semi-annual measurement waves across three years. During each measurement wave, mothers and children reported momentary negative and positive affect via a custom smartphone-based EMA application across seven days (randomly sampled up to eight times per day). Each dyad member’s momentary affective states were used to predict their own and the other dyad member’s accelerometer-measured MVPA and sedentary time in the prompt-matched 45-min time window. Multilevel modeling within the actor-partner interdependence model (APIM) framework was applied to accommodate the nested dyadic nature of the data. Results At the within-subject level, when children had higher-than-usual positive affect, they engaged in greater MVPA and less sedentary time in the prompt-matched 45-min window (actor effects; ps \u3c .001). When mothers experienced higher-than-usual positive affect, they engaged in more sedentary time in the same 45-min window (actor effect; p \u3c .001). Children’s higher-than-usual positive affect also predicted more MVPA time of their mothers (partner effect; p \u3c .05). At the between-subjects level, for mothers who reported higher average negative affect than other mothers, their children overall had less MVPA and more sedentary time (partner effects ps \u3c .05). Conclusions This study extends the literature by demonstrating that mothers’ and children’s everyday physical activity and sedentary time are not only associated with their own affective states, but also may be influenced by the affective states of each other. Our findings suggest that affective states have the potential to influence movement behaviors in mother-child dyads’ everyday lives. Affective underpinnings of physical activity and sedentary behaviors should be further studied in order to develop family-based intervention strategies to influence these behaviors

Direct and Indirect Effects of Parent Stress on Child Obesity Risk and Added Sugar Intake in a Sample of Southern California Adolescents

Objective Research indicates that children are at higher risk for obesity if their parents have been exposed to a larger number of stressors, yet little is known about effects of parents’ subjective, perceived experience of stress on children’s eating behaviours and adiposity and whether weight-related parenting practices (i.e. parent rules and positive family meal practices) mediate this relationship. The present study evaluated the direct and mediated relationship between parent perceived stress and child waist circumference and parent stress and child consumption of added sugars one year later. Design Longitudinal panel data. Setting Eleven communities in Southern California, USA. Subjects Data were collected over two waves from parent–child dyads (n 599). Most parents were female (81 %) and Hispanic (51 %); children were 11 years old on average (sd 1·53; range 7–15 years) and 31 % received free school lunch. Results Perceived parent stress was not significantly associated with child waist circumference or consumption of added sugars one year later, and mediating pathways through parenting practices were not significant. However, parent rules were significantly associated with lower child consumption of added sugars (β=−0·14, P\u3c0·001). Conclusions Results suggest that parent rules about the types of foods children can eat, clearly explained to children, may decrease child consumption of added sugars but not necessarily lead to changes in obesity risk. Parent- and family-based interventions that support development of healthy rules about child eating have the potential to improve child dietary nutrient intake

Ecological Momentary Assessment Is a Feasible and Valid Methodological Tool to Measure Older Adults’ Physical Activity and Sedentary Behavior

Ecological momentary assessment (EMA) has the potential to yield new insights into the prediction and modeling of physical activity (PA) and sedentary behavior (SB). The objective of this study was to determine the feasibility and validity of an EMA protocol to assess older adults’ PA and SB. Feasibility was determined by examining factors associated with EMA survey compliance and if PA or SB were impacted by EMA survey compliance. Validity was determined by comparing EMA-reported PA and SB to objectively measured PA and SB at the EMA prompt. Over 10 days, older adults (n = 104; Agerange = 60–98 years) received 6 randomly prompted EMA questionnaires on a smartphone each day and wore an ActivPAL activity monitor to provide a device-based measure of PA and SB. Participants reported whether they were currently engaged in PA or SB. Older adults were compliant with the EMA and ActivPAL protocol on 92% of occasions. Differences in EMA compliance differed by weight status. Among overweight and obese older adults EMA compliance differed by sex (OR = 3.15, 95% CI: 1.43, 6.92) and day of week (OR = 1.79, 95% CI: 1.33, 2.41). Among normal weight older adults, EMA compliance differed by time of day (OR = 1.52, 95% CI: 1.02, 2.30). EMA compliance did not differ for device-based PA or SB in the 15 min before versus the 15 min after the EMA prompt, suggesting that these behaviors did not influence likelihood of responding and responding did not influence these behaviors (ps > 0.05). When PA was reported through EMA, participants engaged in less device-based PA in the 15 min after compared to the 15 min before the EMA prompt (p = 0.01), suggesting possible reactance or a disruption of PA. EMA-reported PA and SB were positively associated with higher device-based PA and SB in the ±15 min, respectively, supporting criterion validity (ps < 0.05). The assessment of older adults’ PA and SB through EMA is feasible and valid, although there may be PA reactance to EMA prompting. Therefore, EMA represents a significant methodological tool that can aid in our understanding of the environmental, social, and psychological processes regulating older adults’ PA and SB in the context of everyday life

Ambulatory assessment for physical activity research. State of the science, best practices and future directions

Technological and digital progress benefits physical activity (PA) research. Here we compiled expert knowledge on how Ambulatory Assessment (AA) is utilized to advance PA research, i.e., we present results of the 2nd International CAPA Workshop 2019 "Physical Activity Assessment - State of the Science, Best Practices, Future Directions" where invited researchers with experience in PA assessment, evaluation, technology and application participated. First, we provide readers with the state of the AA science, then we give best practice recommendations on how to measure PA via AA and shed light on methodological frontiers, and we furthermore discuss future directions. AA encompasses a class of methods that allows the study of PA and its behavioral, biological and physiological correlates as they unfold in everyday life. AA includes monitoring of movement (e.g., via accelerometry), physiological function (e.g., via mobile electrocardiogram), contextual information (e.g., via geolocation-tracking), and ecological momentary assessment (EMA; e.g., electronic diaries) to capture self-reported information. The strengths of AA are data assessment that near real-time, which minimizes retrospective biases in real-world settings, consequentially enabling ecological valid findings. Importantly, AA enables multiple assessments across time within subjects resulting in intensive longitudinal data (ILD), which allows unraveling within-person determinants of PA in everyday life. In this paper, we show how AA methods such as triggered e-diaries and geolocation-tracking can be used to measure PA and its correlates, and furthermore how these findings may translate into real-life interventions. In sum, AA provides numerous possibilities for PA research, especially the opportunity to tackle within-subject antecedents, concomitants, and consequences of PA as they unfold in everyday life. In-depth insights on determinants of PA could help us design and deliver impactful interventions in real-world contexts, thus enabling us to solve critical health issues in the 21st century such as insufficient PA and high levels of sedentary behavior. (DIPF/Orig.

Do Stressed Mothers have Heavier Children? A Meta‐Analysis on the Relationship Between Maternal Stress and Child Body Mass Index

Child obesity continues to be a prevalent public health issue. This meta‐analysis synthesized 17 studies investigating the association between levels of psychological stress experienced by mothers and the body mass index of their children. The overall standardized mean difference effect size was positive and significantly different from zero in cross‐sectional d = 0.20 (k = 14, 95% confidence interval [CI]: 0.06, 0.34) and longitudinal studies d = 0.18 (k = 5, 95% CI: 0.00, 0.351) and had significant heterogeneity in both (cross‐sectional, Q[13] = 193.00, P \u3c 0.001; longitudinal, Q[4] = 29.46, P \u3c 0.001). In longitudinal studies, effect sizes were larger when children also would have experienced the stressor, Q(6) = 4.68, P \u3c 0.05, for toddlers than infants, Q(4) = 5.04, P \u3c 0.05, and in higher quality studies, Q(4) = 14.58, P \u3c 0.05. Results highlight the potential benefits of including a parent stress management component in childhood obesity prevention programmes