Poster #71 - Maternal Modeling of Body Image and Eating to their Adolescent Daughters

• In Event: Poster Session 18

Abstract

Mothers’ negative body image and problematic eating behavior can predict their daughters’ similar attitudes and behaviors (Berge et al., 2015; Neumark-Sztainer et al., 2010). Mothers do not need to directly tell their daughters to adopt these attitudes and behaviors; daughters can learn these through the mothers’ modeling (Baker et al., 2000). Mothers who reported being dissatisfied with their body or engaged in dieting behaviors had adolescent daughters who were more likely to diet to lose weight (Neumark- Sztainer et al., 2010). There is minimal experimental work on maternal modeling of body image and eating, and one extant study found that mothers who modeled negative body image and eating comments about themselves had daughters that reported lower body esteem and more eating problems (Handford et al., 2018). The current study looks at one way that maternal modeling might impact their adolescent daughter’s body image. Mothers and their 14- to 18-year-old daughters (M = 17.23, SD = 1.03) participated in a single- session virtual meeting with the researcher. Mothers and daughters completed measures about their body image, eating, and demographics at time 1 (Mendelson et al., 2001; Van Strien et al., 1986). Specifically, weight body esteem measured daughters’ satisfaction with their weight; appearance body esteem measured daughters’ satisfaction with their overall appearance, and attribution body esteem measured one’s perception of other peoples’ evaluations of their appearance. Next, the pair participated in a clothing advertisement task, where they discussed and rated the effectiveness of six women’s clothing advertisements. Immediately prior, mothers in the positive condition (n = 17) and negative condition (n = 16) were asked to compare themselves to the woman in each clothing advertisement using positive or negative body image and eating talk, respectively. Mothers in the neutral condition (n = 15) were asked to avoid modeling any body image or eating talk while discussing the clothing advertisements. Daughters then completed repeated measures of their state-based body image and eating at time 2. Eating behaviors, weight body esteem, and appearance body esteem did not vary across time or condition. There was a significant effect of time on attribution body esteem, F(1, 46) = 6.942, p = .011. Attribution body esteem was not different across conditions at time 1, F (2, 46) = 1.255, p = .295. Average attribution body esteem decreased across conditions from time 1 (M = 2.301, SE = .095) to time 2 (M = 2.188, SE = .084). Daughters in all conditions reported similar attribution body esteem before discussing clothing advertisements with their mother. These attribution body esteem ratings decreased significantly across conditions after having these conversations with their mother, regardless of whether their mother was asked to model a positive body image, negative body image, or to avoid body talk. One possibility is that these daughters became more focused on their perception of other peoples’ judgments towards their own bodies after discussing other peoples’ bodies with their mother, regardless of condition. This project will continue to collect a larger dataset to investigate this mechanism.

Authors

• Melissa Heinrich, University of Texas at Dallas
  Presenting Author

• Donald Christopher Garcia MacPhail, University of Texas at Dallas

• Shayla C Holub, University of Texas at Dallas