Mothers who have young or multiple children may engage in less intense physical activity

A new study exploring physical activity patterns among mothers in Britain suggests that mothers of young children and mothers of multiple children may engage in lower amounts of moderate or vigorous physical activity. Rachel Simpson and colleagues at the Medical Research Council Epidemiology Unit at the University of Cambridge, the MRC Lifecourse Epidemiology Centre and NIHR Southampton Biomedical Research Centre present these findings in the open-access journal PLOS ONE on November 16, 2022.

Previous research has shown that parents engage in less physical activity than non-parents, suggesting that parents may miss out on some of the many health benefits of physical activity. Research into the factors associated with this reduced activity has been limited, though some evidence suggests that mothers’ activity patterns may change once their children are old enough to attend school.

To better understand physical activity habits among mothers, Simpson and colleagues analyzed data from the Southampton Women’s Survey. 848 mothers were asked to wear an accelerometer to track the intensity and duration of their physical activity for up to seven days. The researchers distinguished between overall physical activity of any intensity and the more specific category of moderate or vigorous physical activity, which has greater health benefits than light physical activity.

Statistical analysis of the accelerometer data revealed differences in physical activity habits for mothers of different numbers of children and mothers of children of different ages.

Mothers of at least one school-aged child—a child older than 4 years—tended to engage in greater amounts of moderate or vigorous physical activity than mothers of solely younger children. Mothers of multiple children engaged in lower amounts of moderate or vigorous physical activity than mothers of only children.

Among mothers of multiple children, those with at least one school-aged child had a lower amount of overall physical activity than mothers of solely younger children. For mothers with at least one younger child, those with more children engaged in more overall physical activity.

These findings suggest the possibility that specific groups of moms, specifically mothers of younger children or multiple children, might gain health benefits from efforts to boost their opportunities for higher-intensity activity. The researchers note that further research is needed to inform development of such efforts.

The authors add: “We need to find ways to help mothers of younger (<5s) or multiple children to engage in higher intensity physical activity.”

#####

In your coverage please use this URL to provide access to the freely available article in PLOS ONE: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0276964

Citation: Simpson RF, Hesketh KR, Crozier SR, Baird J, Cooper C, Godfrey KM, et al. (2022) The association between number and ages of children and the physical activity of mothers: Cross-sectional analyses from the Southampton Women’s Survey. PLoS ONE 17(11): e0276964. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0276964

Author Countries: UK

Funding: RFS is funded by an ESRC studentship (RG84395). The work of EvS, KRH and KW is supported by the Medical Research Council (grant numbers MC_UU_00006/5 and MC_UU_12015/3). This work was undertaken under the auspices of the Centre for Diet and Activity Research (CEDAR) (grant number MR/K023187/1), a UKCRC Public Health Research Centre of Excellence. Funding from the British Heart Foundation, Cancer Research UK, Economic and Social Research Council, Medical Research Council, the National Institute for Health Research, and the Wellcome Trust, under the auspices of the UK Clinical Research Collaboration, is gratefully acknowledged. KRH is also funded by the Wellcome Trust (grant number 107337/Z/15/Z), and KW through the NIHR Cambridge Biomedical Research Centre (IS-BRC-1215-20014). KMG is supported by the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR Senior Investigator (NF-SI-0515-10042), NIHR Southampton 1000DaysPlus Global Nutrition Research Group (17/63/154) and NIHR Southampton Biomedical Research Centre (IS-BRC-1215-20004)) and the European Union (Erasmus+ Programme ImpENSA 598488-EPP-1-2018-1-DE-EPPKA2-CBHE-JP). The work of CC, KMG, NCH, HMI, JB and SRC was supported by funding from the Medical Research Council, British Heart Foundation, the UK Food Standards Agency, British Lung Foundation, the Arthritis Research UK, National Osteoporosis Society, International Osteoporosis Foundation, Cohen Trust, the European Union Seventh Framework Programme (FP7/2007-2013) Early Nutrition project under grant agreement 289346, and European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No 733206, 9.6 M€ (LifeCycle), NIHR Southampton Biomedical Research Centre, and National Institute of Health Research Musculoskeletal Biomedical Research Unit, Oxford. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.