The relationship between caregivers and daughters’ food and body shape scripts: A dyadic analysis

Abstract

Research indicates a key role for parenting in a daughter's relationship with food and body shape. One possible mechanism for this translational process is through scripts. The present study used a dyadic design to investigate the relationship between caregivers and daughters' scripts regarding food and body shape. Caregivers (n = 40) and their daughters (n = 40) rated word lists of their current and childhood scripts and caregivers completed an additional measure of their parenting scripts. Non-dyadic analysis showed consistent correlations between daughters' current scripts and their recollections of childhood scripts, and several (but less consistent) correlations between caregivers' current scripts, their own childhood scripts and the scripts they had used as a parent. Dyadic analysis showed consistent correlations between the daughter's current scripts relating to negative eating and both positive and negative body scripts and their caregiver's parenting scripts, and between the daughter's current scripts relating to positive and negative eating and body looking positive and their caregiver's current scripts. No associations were found between the daughter's current scripts and the caregiver's childhood scripts. The results indicate that whilst daughters' current scripts relating to food and body shape are often concordant to those reported by their caregivers, they are more closely linked to what they remember from their childhoods. Further, they suggest that those scripts which do transfer between generations may be more related to body size and negative eating than food per se. Finally, the results suggest that scripts do not inevitably pass across the generations possibly due to parents choosing not to repeat the errors of their own parents or due to the role of factors other than just parenting in creating the scripts we hold.