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Weight-related attitudes and behaviors ofadolescent boys and girls who are encouraged to diet by their mothers

International Journal of Obesity volume 26, pages 1579–1587 (2002)Cite this article

Abstract

OBJECTIVE: To assess the relationships between mothers' reports of dieting and encouraging adolescents to diet and adolescents' reports of their own dieting practices and weight-related concerns.

DESIGN: Cross-sectional study of parent interviews and adolescent surveys in an ethnically-diverse sample.

SUBJECTS: A total of 810 adolescents (n=381 boys and n=429 girls) and their mothers.

RESULTS: Mothers' dieting was associated with their adolescent girls' weight-related concerns and behaviors, but these associations were not significant after adjusting for girls' body mass index (BMI). In contrast, mothers' encouragement for sons to diet was associated with sons' binge eating, dieting and other weight-control behaviors, even after controlling for sons' BMI. Compared with mothers who did not encourage their child to diet, mothers who encouraged their child to diet were significantly heavier women and were more likely to view their child as overweight. Forty-three percent of boys and 46% of girls who were encouraged by their mothers to diet were classified as nonoverweight by federal guidelines.

CONCLUSIONS: Boys who are encouraged by their mothers to diet may be at risk for health-compromising eating and dieting behaviors, particularly binge-eating, fasting, eating a little bit of food and skipping meals. Parents who are concerned about their children's weight should be educated to encourage healthy eating habits and physical activity to promote their children's health, including healthy weight control.

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Notes

  1. Most of the variables in the study were assessed with items whose response options were polytomous or quasi-continuous rather than strictly dichotomous or strictly continuous; therefore, two approaches were taken for data analysis. First, analyses were conducted with logistic regression with the assumption that the variables were categorical. Second, analyses were conducted with t-tests with the assumption that the variables were continuous. The results of the two approaches were compared and the findings were quite consistent. Thus, for ease of interpretation, logistic regression analyses with dichotomous dependent variables are presented.

  2. The influence of mothers' weight on adolescent weight concerns and dieting was examined by including mothers' BMI as an independent variable in the logistic regression models along with the independent variable assessing mothers' encouragement to diet. Including mothers' BMI in the model did not change the significant findings for mothers' encouragement on adolescent weight concerns and dieting practices.

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Acknowledgements

This study was supported by grant R40 MC 00125 from the Maternal and Child Health Bureau (Title V, Social Security Act), Health Resources and Services Administration, Department of Health and Human Services. We thank Jillian Moe and Scott Mulert for project coordination, and Rose Hilk and Peter Hannan for data management.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Division of Epidemiology, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, Minnesota, USA

    JA Fulkerson, MT McGuire, D Neumark-Sztainer, M Story, SA French & CL Perry

Authors
  1. JA Fulkerson
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  2. MT McGuire
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  3. D Neumark-Sztainer
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  4. M Story
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  5. SA French
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  6. CL Perry
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Correspondence to JA Fulkerson.

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Fulkerson, J., McGuire, M., Neumark-Sztainer, D. et al. Weight-related attitudes and behaviors ofadolescent boys and girls who are encouraged to diet by their mothers. Int J Obes 26, 1579–1587 (2002). https://doi.org/10.1038/sj.ijo.0802157

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