Exploring parents’ screen-viewing behaviours and sedentary time in association with their attitudes toward their young child’s screen-viewing

Sedentary time and screen-viewing (SV) are associated with chronic disease risk in adults. Parent and child sedentary time and SV are associated. Parents influence children’s SV through parenting styles and role modelling. Understanding whether parents’ attitudes toward child SV are associated with their own SV and sedentary time will aid development of family interventions to reduce sedentary behaviours. Cross-sectional data with 809 parents from Bristol, UK were collected in 2012-2013 and analysed in 2016. Parental total sedentary time was derived from accelerometer data. Parents self-reported daily television viewing, use of computers, games consoles, and smartphone/tablets (none, 1-59 mins, 1-2 hrs, >2 hrs) and attitudes toward child SV. Adjusted linear and logistic regression models were used to examine associations, separately for weekdays and weekend days. Having negative attitudes toward child SV was associated with lower weekend sedentary time (Coeff: -6.41 [95% CI: -12.37 to -0.45] mins/day). Limiting behaviours and having negative attitudes toward child SV were associated with lower weekday television viewing (OR: 0.72 [0.57-0.90] and 0.57 [0.47-0.70] respectively), weekend television viewing (0.75 [0.59-0.95] and 0.61 [0.50-0.75]), and weekend computer use (0.73 [0.58-0.92] and 0.80 [0.66-0.97]). Negative attitudes were also associated with lower smartphone use on weekdays (0.70 [0.57-0.85]) and weekends (0.70 [0.58-0.86]). Parent self-efficacy for limiting child SV and setting SV rules were not associated with sedentary time or SV. Reporting negative attitudes toward child SV was associated with lower accelerometer-assessed weekend total sedentary time and self-reported SV behaviours, while limiting child SV was also associated with lower self-reported SV.