Maternal correlates of adolescent girls' eating disorder tendencies

Abstract

Characteristics of the mothers, as well as those of the mother-daughter relationship, among eating disordered populations have been discussed extensively in the clinical literature, although there are few empirical studies with clinical or at risk populations, especially in Japan. According to the studies in other countries, mothers of eating disordered girls were themselves more likely to be eating disordered, and exhibited more traditional gender-role attitudes as well as greater concern about their own appearance than mothers of girls who were not eating disordered. The present study used a questionnaire with 7th and 8th grade girls and their mothers to examine whether similar maternal characteristics would be found in a Japanese population. The results of path analyses showed that mothers' traditional gender-role attitudes and greater concern about their own appearance were both significantly related to the mothers' eating disorder tendencies, which was related to the daughters' eating disorder tendencies, by way of socialization about dieting. The way in which mothers' gender-role attitudes may affect the daughters' eating disorder tendencies differed according to daughters' menarcheal status. For premenarcheal girls, the mother's traditional gender-role attitudes affected her own eating disorder tendencies, which affected the daughter's eating disorder tendencies by way of socialization about dieting. In contrast, for postmenarcheal girls, the mother's traditional gender-role attitudes affected socialization about dieting, without being mediated by the mother's own eating disorder tendencies. For postmenarcheal girls, the mother's eating disorder tendencies had little influence upon socialization about dieting, suggesting the relative importance of other correlates upon the daughter's eating disorder tendencies. The results are discussed in terms of their implications for the prevention of eating problems shared among women across generations.