'Don't Eat so Much:' How Parent Comments Relate to Female Weight Satisfaction

Abstract

Purpose: How will the words of a parent influence the adult weight of their daughter? This retrospective study evaluates how the recalled comments of parents made about the weight or eating habits of a daughter related relate to her adult BMI and satisfaction with her weight.

Method: A nationwide cross-sectional survey was conducted with 501 young women ranging in age from 20-35 (age 26.8, S.D. 3.1; BMI 25.96, S.D. 6.2), who were asked to indicate their weight satisfaction, eating habits, and BMI along with their recall of the extent to which they recalled their parents making weight-related or eating-related comments about them as a young girl. Linear regression analyses were run to examine the relationship between parental comments and women’s weight satisfaction and BMI.

Results: A woman's dissatisfaction with her adult weight was only related to the extent she remembered her parents making any comments about her weight (p<.01), but not about how much she ate (p<.05) -- even though both were positively related to her BMI (p<.001 and p<.01). Even among normal weight young women with similar weights, those who recalled their parents commenting about their weight were less dissatisfied with their body weight.

Discussion: In this retrospective study, a parent's comments about her childhood weight were related to her weight and body dissatisfaction as an adult. In contrast, comments about her eating habits were not significantly related to weight dissatisfaction.