Physical activity of adolescents and their parents' mood could be linked

Lack of exercise among adolescents affects more than just their physical condition. It turns out that the problem is complex, because the sedentary lifestyle of young people may translate into worse well-being of their parents, according to a study by an international team led by researchers from SWPS University.

Winter school break is underway, and this is a time when children can get away from their desks and spend more time outdoors. With so many other tempting possibilities, will they actually choose this form of activity? Previous research shows that the amount of time we spend sitting, including time spent in front of a screen, has increased alarmingly in recent decades, and this applies largely to adolescents.

Until recently, scientists focused primarily on the fact that lack of exercise promotes obesity and heart disease. Meanwhile, a sedentary lifestyle can negatively impact mental health and well-being, and the effect may persist into adulthood. However, so far, studies linking low levels of physical activity to symptoms of depression have mostly concerned adults.

Activity and family mental health

That is why a team of psychologists from the Wrocław branch of SWPS University, in collaboration with researchers from Germany and Canada, decided to analyse how a sedentary lifestyle affects the mental health of families. The study results were published in the journal Mental Health and Physical Activity, in the paper "Associations between depressive symptoms and sedentary behaviors in parent-child Dyads: Longitudinal effects within- and across- person”.

The researchers collected data on 203 parent-child (9-15 years old) dyads over 14 months in 18 urban locations and 9 rural locations in south-western Poland. The study was longitudinal, with three measurement points (at baseline, after 8 months and after 14 months). The surveyed parents were mainly women (86.7%) aged 29-66 years. Symptoms of depression were assessed using the Patient Health Questionnaire-9 (PHQ-9), and the length of time spent in a sitting position was measured using a special activity monitoring device worn on the hips.

During the first stage of the study, parents and their children participated in a healthy lifestyle education programme, addressing definitions and patterns of sedentary behaviours, health consequences of sedentary lifestyle, and strategies for counteracting it.

A vicious circle: From the couch to depression and back again

What do the observations show? Children who had more sedentary time at the beginning of the study reported more symptoms of depression after 8 months. It also worked the other way around - a worse mood at the beginning of the study was associated with limited physical activity in adolescents during the first stage of observation.

This situation affected the parents as well. As an indirect effect, the researchers observed that children's increased sedentary time after 8 months could be associated with the increased severity of parents' depressive symptoms at the end of the study.

These results suggest that the child's lifestyle has an impact on the caregiver's mental well-being. This mechanism may be related to the psychological burden on the parent resulting from watching the child withdraw from activity, which may lead to a sense of helplessness and concerns about the child's development. These emotions, accumulated over time, can lead to low mood in adults, explains psychologist Maria Siwa, PhD, from the CARE-BEH Center for Applied Research on Health Behavior and Health at the Faculty of Psychology in Wrocław, SWPS University, co-author of the paper.

This is one of the first pieces of evidence that children's lifestyles can impact mental health of adults. The researchers emphasise, however, that these results should be treated with caution, and future research should focus on the potential influence of factors such as parents' beliefs or adolescents' susceptibility to adults' actions.

The study also shows that teenagers spend much more time sitting than their parents do. Interestingly, during the study, this time systematically increased in children, while remaining constant in parents.

Health-promoting interventions for everyone

The researchers did make an unexpected observation during the study. Children who reported lower levels of depressive symptoms after 8 months would spend more time sitting after 14 months. The researchers suspect that this may reflect the long-term effects of the educational program. Adolescents who recognised and self-reported low levels of depressive symptoms may have concluded that they did not have to reduce their sedentary time to improve their mood. In other words, knowing that they feel good and do not feel negative emotions could limit children’s motivation to take up activities. Therefore, future studies should examine this issue.

The findings from the study demonstrate that health-promoting interventions should cover entire families, experts say. Such interventions should address both sedentary behaviour and activities aimed at improving mental health.

The authors of the study are: Maria Siwa PhD, Dominika Wietrzykowska, Zofia Szczuka PhD, Ewa Kulis PhD, Monika Boberska PhD, Anna Banik PhD, Hanna Zaleśkiewicz, Paulina Krzywicka PhD (SWPS University), Professor Nina Knoll (Freie Universität Berlin), Professor Anita DeLongis (University of British Columbia), Professor Bärbel Knäuper (McGill University), Professor Aleksandra Luszczyńska (SWPS University, University of Melbourne).