A new German study suggests that having physically active parents does not affect teens' level of fitness. Rather, teens with normal weight parents were found to be more fit.
Researchers in the study looked at cardio-respiratory fitness behavior of teens as it plays a major role in their health.
By understanding teen behavior, the researchers hope to develop better methods of eliminating unhealthy habits, says Eliane Peterhans, lead study author and a sports sciences researcher at the University of Konstanz in Germany. The study included 1,328 teens, who were part of a larger German study. Researchers analyzed the participants' cardio-respiratory fitness based on cycling. They questioned them about their family's health behavior too.
Based on their findings, researchers noted that parents with normal body weight had better cardio-respiratory fitness in their teenagers. But the same could not be said about the parents with physically active behaviors as their teens were not influenced by their parents' fitness.
Researchers suggest that parents with normal body weight have a nutritional healthy environment at home, which makes their children healthy. They also found that boys and girls with normal body weight and performing activities like working out, exercising in leisure time or riding a bicycle to school, strongly predicted cardio-respiratory fitness but this was more reflected in boys.
The findings also showed that boys who spent less than two hours in front of televisions or computer screens were more fit than those who spent long hours in front of the television or computer screens. But girls' fitness was not affected by screen time as only 40 percent of them spent more than 2 hours in front of a screen compared to 65 percent of boys.
"We need more research in girls, especially," Peterhans said. "For example, maybe peer behavior is a more important influence on girls' cardio-respiratory fitness than boys."
Aaron Carrel, M.D., medical director at the University of Wisconsin Health's Pediatric Fitness Clinic, suggests that a family's fitness behavior had lesser effect on the cardio-respiratory fitness of girls than boys. He suggests that further research could help in understanding the reason behind this.
The findings are published in the Journal of Adolescent Health.
