Promoting physical activity in children through family-based intervention: The “Active 1+FUN” program

“Active 1+FUN” is a family-based intervention designed using the tenets of self-determination theory. The intervention was designed to help parents support their children’s basic psychological needs for competence (by providing informational feedback and optimal challenges), autonomy (by exploring a variety of activities and reducing controlling behaviors), and relatedness (by increasing co-physical activity between parents and child). The main intervention period will last for approximately 6 months, the length of intervention may vary among participating schools because of the differences of their academic calendars (exam periods, public or school holidays, and school activities would be avoided during the intervention to minimize disturbances to regular school activities). Participants will attend ten biweekly 90-minute intervention sessions. Each session will consist of two parts, a 30-minute interactive workshop followed by a 60-minute activity session. An additional booster session will be provided approximately three months after the tenth intervention session. Both fathers and mothers will be invited to the intervention sessions, and at least one parent must be present during each intervention session. Intervention sessions will be led by activity leaders trained by the investigators. Specifically, all activity leaders will receive two half-day workshops before they begin leading these classes. Each session will be lead by two activity leaders. Storytelling will be adopted as the fundamental teaching strategy in the interactive workshops. This strategy is known to be engaging (Morgan et al., 2016) and will help to facilitate participants’ understanding of the following essential concepts: (i) tenets of self-determination theory (SDT), (ii) benefits of routinizing physical activity, (iii) time management methods, and (iv) parenting practices. There will be different stories and themes for each of workshops, which will start with a short presentation to highlight the important message of the day. Then, each workshop will be followed by interactive activities and discussions between and within families. All video and written teaching materials for these sessions will be prepared by the research team. In line with SDT, one important goal of the workshops is to teach parents how to support their children’s basic psychological needs in various contexts and scenarios and avoid using external control. Role play activities will be embedded in workshops to enable learning and sharing in a more relaxed manner. In the second part of the intervention sessions, parents and children will participate in physical activity together. These sessions will highlight the concepts of MVPA (i.e., huff and puff activity), FMS, motivation, and “co-physical activity”. There will be a gameplay period within the session, using innovative tools and methods, such as methods previously developed by Ha, Lonsdale, Lubans, and Ng (2017). These will be followed by a skill development period using the following sports equipment, including skipping rope, soft volleyball, sponge flying disc, which will be given to participants for free. The aim is to improve participants’ (children and parents) FMS proficiency. Researchers have found that these skills are important determinants of physical activity participation (Lubans, Morgan, Cliff, Barnett, & Okely, 2010). Hence improving such skills in children and parents may increase their future participation in physical activity, beyond the intervention period. Both parents of children will be invited to take part in the intervention sessions specifically chosen sessions will be more tailored for mothers or fathers, respectively. The corresponding parent will be strongly encouraged to take part in these classes, even though they may be unable to attend other sessions. Apart from the workshops and activity sessions, there will be weekly parent-child physical activity homework that will encourage participants to spend at least 30 minutes in total per week to engage in parent-child physical activity. Physical activity homework is an effective means to promote physical activity of students outside of school hours (Duncan et al., 2011; Fairclough et al., 2013; Kriemler et al., 2010), as such parent-child physical activity homework will also promote the physical activity level of both parents and children. An activity logbook will be given to each family to encourage parent-child physical activity planning and to self-report and provide descriptions regarding the relevant parent-child physical activities they have done (e.g., date and time, with whom, the types of co-physical activity and duration). Also, each family will receive two 15-minute consultation sessions during the intervention period. Essentially, each family will receive consultations on how to overcome barriers to engaging in physical activity as a family unit. They will receive scheduling help to identify time gaps for family activities. Families will be encouraged to begin a healthier lifestyle and will be prompt to provide reciprocal reinforcement (i.e., parents and children reinforcing each other simultaneously; (Morgan et al., 2014)). Participants will be assisted to set short- and long-term goals for each family member during the consultations. A research assistant will be trained specifically to provide such consultations. Furthermore, online materials regarding the interactive workshops and FMS will be provided to all the participants. Descriptions about the required FMS in various kinds of sports will be provided. Participants can easily make comparisons between different sports and reflect on their own strengths and weaknesses. A booster session with fun physical activities will be provided to the participants approximately 3 months after the 6-month main intervention period.