Relationship between mothers' thoughts and behaviors and their daughters' development of the body image

Abstract

Behaviors related to body image are influenced by learning and sociocultural environment; the parents can contribute to their children's food problems through social values that they are supporting. Furthermore, it is known that during the development of the body image of girls it is fundamental the identification with the parent of the same sex. However, the extent of maternal influence is unknown, so our aim is to analyze the relationship between thoughts and behaviors of mothers and the development of their daughters' body image, specifically on the variables: perceived image and ideal image, satisfaction and concern about body image, and social network behaviors. The study involved 53 pairs of mothers and daughters, the latter being girls with a normal body mass index and aged between 9 and 13 years. The results show that there is a relationship between the behavior and thoughts of mothers and the development of body image of girls on a cognitive and behavioral level. We conclude that mothers play an important role in the development of body image as though all girls are within normal weight, differences were found in body image of girls in terms of the variables evaluated in mothers.