The effects of maternal modeling and negative familial communication on women's eating attitudes and body image

This research examined negative familial communication as a moderator of the relationship between maternal modeling and dautghters' eating attitudes and body image after controlling for Body Mass Index (BMI) and family environment. Participants were 103 college-aged women and their mothers. Following informed consent, mothers and daughters completed the demographic questionnaire, the Negative Familial Communication items, the Body Shape Questionnaire (BSQ; Cooper, Taylor, Cooper, & Fairburn, 1987), and the Eating Attitudes Test (EAT; Garner & Garfinkel, 1979). Daughters also completed the Family Environment Scale (FES; Moos & Moos, 1986). Three components comprised the maternal modeling variable: past and present dieting behaviors, body image dissatisfaction, and maladaptive eating attitudes and behaviors. Results indicated that negative familial communication moderated the relationship between maternal modeling and daughters' eating attitudes and body image; the influence of maternal modeling was significant at high levels of negative familial communication but not at low levels of negative familial communication. These results may clarify the equivocal findings with respect to modeling in past research and suggest that negative familial communication should be assessed when examining the role of modeling in the development of eating- and weight-related disturbances.