Fewer than half of mothers with younger children manage to meet the recommended levels of moderate-to-vigorous physical activity, according to a new study.
Researchers at the Universities of Cambridge and Southampton found mothers of children under the age of four manage to do the least.
To examine how family composition affected the amount of physical activity mothers engaged in, the team analysed data from 848 women who participated in the UK Southampton Women’s Survey.
The women, aged 20-34 years, were recruited between 1998 and 2002. They were given accelerometers to assess their levels of activity and were followed up over subsequent years.
The results, published in the latest *PLOS ONE*, show women with school-aged children managed about 26 minutes of moderate-to-vigorous physical activity per day compared to mothers of under-fours who managed about 18 minutes per day.
Mothers with more than one child managed about 21 minutes of moderate-to-vigorous physical activity per day, although those with multiple children all under five years old did more light intensity activity than those with children of school-age.
Fewer 50% of mothers met the recommended levels of moderate-to-vigorous physical activity of 150 minutes per week, regardless of the ages of their children.
Dr Kathryn Hesketh from the Medical Research Council (MRC) Epidemiology Unit at the University of Cambridge said: “When you have small children, your parental responsibilities can be all-consuming, and it’s often hard to find the time to be active outside of time spent caring for your children. Exercise is often therefore one of the first things to fall by the wayside, and so most of the physical activity mums manage to do seem to be of a lower intensity.
“However, when children go to school, mums manage to do more physical activity. There are a number of possible reasons why this might be the case, including more opportunities to take part in higher intensity activities with their children; you may return to active commuting; or feel more comfortable using time to be active alone.”
Professor Keith Godfrey from the MRC Lifecourse Epidemiology Centre and the NIHR Southampton Biomedical Research Centre added: “It is perhaps not unexpected that mothers who have young children or several children engage in less intense physical activity, but this is the first study that has quantified the significance of this reduction. More needs to be done by local government planners and leisure facility providers to support mothers in engaging in physical activity.”
Simpson RF, Hesketh KR, Crozier SR et al. 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* 16 November 2022; doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0276964
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