Associations between Parental and Friend Social Support and Children’s Physical Activity and Time Spent outside Playing

Table 1

Principal component analysis of the items in the parental questionnaire assessing parental and friends’ influence on children’s physical activity.

	General parental support	Neighborhood play with friends	Parental PA	Parental PA with child
I pay for my child to attend a sports club (e.g. soccer, swimming)	.893
I transport my child to a sports club in the after school period	.847
I buy sports clothes and other sports equipment related to the sports that my child engages in	.763
My child attends a sports club with a friend	.671
I talk to my child about the benefits of physical activity	.607
My child meets some friends in the afternoon to play outside in the neighborhood		.860
There are children of the same age of my child in the neighborhood for him/her to go out and play		.841
Near our house there are houses of my child’s friends where my child can walk on his/her own to meet friends		.829
My child visits the houses of some friends for play		.369
During weekdays, how much time do you spend being physically active (e.g. walking, gym)?			.909
During weekends, how much time do you spend being physically active (e.g. walking, gym)?			.889
I take part in physical activity with my child during weekdays (e.g. walking, cycling)				.849
I take part in physical activity with my child during weekends (e.g., walking, cycling)				.844
Eigenvalues	3.025	2.394	1.708	1.545
Percentage of variance explained by each factor	23.271	18.414	13.138	11.882
Cronbach’s alpha of each factor	0.828	0.768	0.767	0.650