Department of Human Development and Family Studies, The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, Pennsylvania.
Edna Bennett Pierce Prevention Research Center, College of Health and Human Development, The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, Pennsylvania.
Int J Eat Disord. 2019 Aug;52(8):904-913. doi: 10.1002/eat.23093. Epub 2019 Jun 10.
Parents' comments about their adolescents' weight have been linked with adolescents' disordered eating, but we know little about the personal and contextual conditions that promote or mitigate the effects of parents' perceptions on adolescents' weight concerns. This study examined whether the prospective association between parents' perceptions of adolescents' weight and adolescents' weight concerns differed as a function of exposure to interparental conflict or adolescent gender.
Participants were 386 adolescents (52% female; ages 11-18 years; predominately Caucasian/European American) from 197 families (i.e., up to two adolescents per family) and their parents. Two-parent families with a firstborn child in 8th, 9th, or 10th grade and a secondborn child 1-4 years younger were recruited to participate in a short-term longitudinal study of adolescent development and family relationships. Annual home interviews were conducted with adolescents and parents. Multilevel models tested whether parents' perceptions of adolescents' weight predicted adolescents' weight concerns one year later and whether interparental conflict and youth gender moderated this prospective association.
A significant three-way interaction revealed that when interparental conflict was low, increases in fathers' but not mothers' perceptions of daughters' overweight predicted increases in daughters' weight concerns the following year. In contrast, females exposed to high interparental conflict reported elevated weight concerns the following year regardless of parents' perceptions. Results for males were not significant.
Findings highlight the role of personal and family context characteristics in the development of weight concerns and the value of addressing family processes within preventive interventions for adolescent females' weight concerns.
父母对青少年体重的评价与青少年饮食失调有关，但我们对促进或减轻父母对青少年体重的看法对青少年体重担忧的影响的个人和环境条件知之甚少。本研究考察了父母对青少年体重的看法与青少年对体重的担忧之间的前瞻性关联是否因父母间冲突或青少年性别而异。
参与者为 197 个家庭（最多两个青少年）的 386 名青少年（52%为女性；年龄 11-18 岁；主要为白种人/欧洲裔美国人）及其父母。有两个亲生子女的家庭（即，每个家庭最多有两个青少年），第一个孩子在 8、9 或 10 年级，第二个孩子小 1-4 岁，被招募参加青少年发展和家庭关系的短期纵向研究。每年对青少年和父母进行一次家庭访谈。多层次模型检验了父母对青少年体重的看法是否能预测一年后青少年对体重的担忧，以及父母间冲突和青少年性别是否调节了这种前瞻性关联。
一个显著的三向交互作用表明，当父母间冲突较低时，父亲而不是母亲对女儿超重的看法增加，会导致女儿次年对体重的担忧增加。相比之下，无论父母的看法如何，暴露在高父母间冲突下的女性在次年都会报告体重担忧增加。男性的结果则不显著。
研究结果强调了个人和家庭环境特征在体重担忧发展中的作用，以及在针对青少年女性体重担忧的预防干预中解决家庭过程的价值。
