The Correlation Between Physical Fitness Of Preschool Children And Physical Cognition Of Their Parents

PURPOSE: Parents are playing a more important role than before in promoting the physical development of preschool children. This study was aimed to analyze the characteristics of Chinese preschool children’s physical fitness and the physical cognition of children’s parents, and to explore the relationship between the two. METHODS: 459 Chinese preschool children (223 boys & 236 girls) aged 3-6 years (M ± SD: 4.57 ± 1.12) were recruited from 9 kindergartens in Shanghai, China. Physical fitness of the children was tested based on the Chinese National Fitness Standards (for preschool children). Physical cognition of parents was measured by the cognitive questionnaire on decisional balance scale for exercise. Correlation between children’s physical fitness test score and physical cognition score from the questionnaire was checked. RESULTS: The total score of the physical test is (24.99 ± 4.72) points. In terms of physical shape, standard weight and height scores are 3.88 and 3.94 points respectively; physical fitness included the following subtests (points): standing long jump (2.97), sit and reach (2.77), continuous foot jumping (3.43), balance beam (2.38), 15-meter obstacle run (2.68), and grip strength (2.99). Fail rate 11.4%, qualified rate 50.0%, good rate 29.8%, excellent rate 8.7%. Parents’ exercise benefit score was (3.88 ± 0.54) points, exercise cost is (2.62 ± 0.65) points, exercise decision balance score is (1.26 ± 0.99) points, the parents with a score of more than 0 accounted for 90.4%. Parents’ exercise decision balance score is significantly correlated with children’s physical fitness test scores (r = 0.286, p < 0.01). CONCLUSIONS: The current physical fitness of Chinese children is not optimistic. Most children have fair physical fitness level but rare of them are excellent. The development of various physical fitness is unbalanced. The proportion of Chinese parents who are aware of physical behavior is relatively high, and there is a significant correlation with the physical fitness of children. This shows that most parents now recognize the benefits of physical behavior and their attitudes towards physical exercise may affect children’s physical fitness. Behavior has an impact on the physical fitness of preschool children.