Connections between Parental Eating Behaviors and Adolescents’ Disordered Eating Attitudes and Behaviors Optimal Parenting Style as a Mediator

Abstract

An optimal parenting style consists of high warmth and low overprotection, and can influence the development of adolescents’ eating attitudes and behaviors. Evidence suggests that parental eating behaviors influence their children’s eating attitudes and behaviors. In the current study, the link between parental eating behaviors and disordered eating attitudes and behaviors was assessed among 224 adolescent boys and girls in middle and high school via bivariate linear regression. Additionally, optimal parenting style as a mediator between parental eating behaviors and adolescents’ disordered eating attitudes and behaviors was assessed with a mediation model that used bivariate and multiple linear regression. I found significant associations between parental eating behaviors and adolescents’ disordered eating attitudes and behaviors for boys and girls, and partial mediation was found for girls. However, there was no mediation found for boys as optimal parenting was not significantly related to boys’ disordered eating attitudes and behaviors.