Relationships among adolescent girls' eating behaviors and their parents' weight-related attitudes and behaviors

This article examines adolescent girls' weight loss behaviors and possible parent influences related to weight and shape, Questionnaires were completed by 369 grade 10 girls and their parents, Findings suggested that parent encouragement to lose weight was a more significant predictor of daughter dietary restraint than parents' own dietary restraint levels. Mother influence variables added significantly to a regression equation after father influences had been entered, but the reverse was not the case. Parents' food abstaining behaviors, such as fasting and skipping meals, predicted food abstaining in daughters. Most findings were replicated when daughter body size was controlled for. Implications for models of the transmission of diet and weight-related values from parent to child are discussed.