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Parents' perceptions of their children's physical activity during the COVID-19 pandemic
Emma Ostermeier1,2,3, Patricia Tucker2,3,4,5, Danielle Tobin3
1Health and Rehabilitation Sciences, Faculty of Health Sciences, The University of Western Ontario, London, ON, Canada.
Insights
COVID-19 reduced children's physical activity by limiting access to organized activities and public spaces. Parents suggest implementing health protocols, outdoor options, and varied programming to support children's return to physical activity.
Area of Science:
- Pediatrics
- Public Health
- Sports Science
Background:
- COVID-19 pandemic protocols significantly altered children's daily lives, restricting peer interactions, organized activities, and access to recreational facilities.
- These public health measures, while necessary for viral transmission reduction, inadvertently limited children's opportunities for physical activity.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate the impact of COVID-19 on children's engagement in physical activity.
- To identify strategies that can facilitate children's re-engagement with physical activity programs in public settings.
Main Methods:
- Semi-structured online interviews were conducted with 27 parents of children who previously participated in a Grade 5 physical activity program.
- Interviews explored changes in children's physical activity levels, lifestyle adjustments due to COVID-19, and parental recommendations for supporting return to programming.
- Thematic analysis was employed using NVivo 12 to analyze transcribed interview data.
Main Results:
- Four major themes emerged: modifications to everyday life (activity options, social environment), safety in public spaces, accessibility of activities, and utilization of outdoor spaces.
- Parents identified key strategies for facilitating children's return to public physical activity programming.
Conclusions:
- COVID-19 protocols have negatively impacted children's physical activity levels by reducing access to regular activities, recreational spaces, and social support.
- Parents recommend implementing facility-specific health protocols, offering diverse outdoor activities, and providing varied program options (type, time, location).
- Service providers must adopt supportive programming and safety measures to promote children's physical activity during and after the pandemic, addressing the health consequences of inactivity.
Background:
COVID-19 has drastically changed the everyday lives of children, including limiting interactions with peers, loss of regularly organized activities, and closure of schools and recreational facilities. While COVID-19 protocols are in place to reduce viral transmission, they have affected children's access to physical activity opportunities. The purpose of this study was to understand how COVID-19 has affected children's engagement in physical activity and to identify strategies that can support children's return to physical activity programming in public places.
Methods:
Parents of past participants in the Grade 5 ACT-i-Pass Program in London, Ontario, Canada were invited to participate in a semi-structured interview online (in November and December 2020) via Microsoft Teams. The script was comprised of questions about their child's physical activity levels (before, current, and anticipated following COVID-19), lifestyle changes due to COVID-19, and what service providers can do to assist children's return to public programming. Interviews were transcribed in Microsoft Teams, reviewed by a member of the research team, and analyzed in NVivo 12 using thematic analysis.
Results:
Twenty-seven parents participated in an interview. Four themes and two subthemes were identified during analysis: (1) modifications to everyday life (a. activity options available and b. altered social environment), (2) safety in public spaces, (3) accessibility of activities, and (4) utilizing outdoor spaces.
Conclusions:
COVID-19 protocols have decreased children's physical activity levels due to the loss of their regular activities, recreational spaces, and peer support. Implementing facility and activity-specific health protocols, providing outdoor activity options, and offering a variety of activity types, times, and locations are three strategies recommended by parents to help facilitate their children's return to public recreational places. Due to the negative consequences of physical inactivity on children's health and well-being, service providers need to implement programming and safety protocols that support children's engagement in physical activity throughout the remainder of, and the years following, the COVID-19 pandemic.
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