Self-esteem, parental appraisal and body size in children.

This study investigates the influence of body size, parental appraisal of body size, and children's beliefs about parental appraisal, on self-esteem in children from 9 to 11 years old. Parents' and children's responses to a matched question about body size suggest that children are accurate predictors of parental evaluation and that their self-esteem scores are influenced both by actual parental dissatisfaction and beliefs about parental dissatisfaction. For boys, lower self-esteem is associated both with thinness and being perceived as too thin. For girls, lower self-esteem is more associated with fatness.