Despite the fact that many children do not comply with the
physical activity recommendations [10], our results suggest that
only a few children have unfavourable preferences, which is
encouraging. Furthermore, children seem confident that they can
do physical activity 1 hour per day, which is promising as selfefficacy
or perceived behavioural control has been reported as an
important determinant for physical activity [51,52] The current
study shows that knowledge of the recommendation and weightrelated
health beliefs regarding physical activity was limited,
therefore children and their parents need to become more aware
of the recommendations and health benefits of physical activity
[53]. Moreover, the current findings suggest that parents in
general may take a more active role in encouraging physical
activity among their children by setting the right example and
doing physical activity with their children, which all have been
positively related to physical activity levels in children [12,20,54].
Especially in this age group parental support and encouragement
is an important enabling factor, that may be required before
personal factors can elicit their effect