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Introduction: Cycling is deeply ingrained in Dutch culture and therefore presents a great opportunity to contribute to an active lifestyle. Cycling to school incorporates physical activity into daily routines for primary school-aged children. Limited research on factors influencing cycling to school behavior has been conducted. We investigated the association between COM-B (capability, opportunity, and motivation to engage in an identified behavior) related factors and cycling to school behavior among Dutch primary school-aged children. Methods: We conducted a cross-sectional study among 878 parents of children aged 4 to 12 years in the Netherlands. We assessed 22 items measuring perceived physical and psychological capabilities, perceived social and physical opportunities, and reflective and automatic motivation to cycle to school. We used multivariate logistic regression analysis to estimate the influence of these items regarding cycling to school behavior. Results: Children were more likely to cycle to school when parents encouraged cycling and when peers also cycled. Children were less likely to cycle to school when parents needed to bring younger siblings to school and when they perceived the distances to school as to far. Conclusions: Our results suggest that the social environment plays an important role in shaping children’s cycling to school behavior, with parents playing a crucial role. Future research might benefit from applying a systems perspective to understand the interrelated factors influencing this behavior. This is essential for creating effective, tailored interventions to promote cycling to school in primary school-aged children based on relevant leverage points within the system.
Veldman et al. (Wed,) studied this question.