title: Agreement between parent and child report on parental practices regarding dietary, physical activity and sedentary behaviours: the ENERGY cross-sectional survey.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Parents and their parenting practices play an important role in shaping their children's environment and energy-balance related behaviours (EBRBs). Measurement of parenting practices can be parent- or child-informed, however not much is known about agreement between parent and child perspectives. This study aimed to assess agreement between parent and child reports on parental practices regarding EBRBs across different countries in Europe and to identify correlates of agreement.
  
  
  METHODS
  Within the ENERGY-project, a cross-sectional survey was conducted among 10-12 year old children and their parents in eight European countries. Both children and parents filled in a questionnaire on 14 parental practices regarding five different EBRBs (i.e. soft drink, fruit juice and breakfast consumption, sports activity and watching TV) and socio-demographic characteristics. Children's anthropometric measurements were taken at school. We calculated percentages of agreement between children and their parents and weighted kappa statistics (for ordinal variables) per practice and country and assessed factors associated with agreement using multilevel linear regression.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Reports of 6425 children and their parents were available for analysis. Overall mean agreement between parent and child reports was 43% and varied little among countries. The lowest agreement was found for questions assessing joint parent-child activities, such as sports (27%; Kappa (κ) = 0.14) or watching TV (30%; κ = 0.17), and for parental allowance of the child to have soft drinks (32%; κ = 0.24) or fruit juices (32%; κ = 0.19), or to watch TV (27%; κ = 0.17). Having breakfast products available at home or having a TV in the child's bedroom were the only practices with moderate to good agreement (>60%; κ = 0.06 and 0.77, respectively). In general, agreement was lower for boys, younger children, younger parents, parents with less than 14 years of education, single parents, parents with a higher self-reported body mass index and parents who perceived their child to be underweight.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Parents and children perceive parental practices regarding dietary, physical activity and sedentary behaviours differently in all parts of Europe, with considerable variation across specific practices and countries. Therefore, future studies should assess both, parents and children's view on parental practices.
authors.forename: Cornelia E
authors.initials: CE
authors.lastname: Rebholz
authors.forename: Mai J M
authors.initials: MJ
authors.lastname: Chinapaw
authors.forename: Maartje M
authors.initials: MM
authors.lastname: van Stralen
authors.forename: Elling
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Bere
authors.forename: Bettina
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Bringolf
authors.forename: Ilse
authors.initials: I
authors.lastname: De Bourdeaudhuij
authors.forename: Nataša
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Jan
authors.forename: Eva
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Kovacs
authors.forename: Lea
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Maes
authors.forename: Yannis
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Manios
authors.forename: Luis
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Moreno
authors.forename: Amika S
authors.initials: AS
authors.lastname: Singh
authors.forename: Johannes
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Brug
authors.affiliation: EMGO Institute for Health and Care Research and the Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics, VU University Medical Center, Amsterdam, The Netherlands. tevelde@vumc.nl.
authors.forename: Saskia J
authors.initials: SJ
authors.lastname: te Velde
mesh_terms: D002648:Child; D003430:Cross-Sectional Studies; D004032:Diet; D005060:Europe; D015444:Exercise; D005247:Feeding Behavior; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D009043:Motor Activity; D016487:Parenting; D010290:Parents / Q000523:psychology*; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D057185:Sedentary Behavior; D057566:Self Report; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires / Q000592:standards*