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To examine the relationship between adolescents' dissatisfaction with their body weight (dieting or perceived need to diet) and communication with parents in an international survey involving 24 countries.
Methods
Survey data on adolescents from 24 countries and regions who participated in the cross-sectional 2001/2002 Health Behaviour of School-Aged Children (HBSC) survey were used. The association between body weight dissatisfaction and communication with parents was examined using binary logistic regression analysis.
Results
Body weight dissatisfaction was more common among girls than boys, among overweight than non-overweight adolescents, and among older adolescents than younger adolescents. Difficulty in talking to fathers was more common than difficulty in talking to mothers in all countries and it was greater among girls than among boys and increased with age. Weight dissatisfaction was associated with difficulty in talking to father among both boys and girls in most countries. Difficulty in talking to mother was rarely associated with body weight dissatisfaction among boys while among girls this association was found in most countries.
Conclusions
Communication with father plays a role in body weight dissatisfaction among boys and girls, while communication with mother plays a role in body weight dissatisfaction among girls only. These relationships are highly consistent across the countries in this study. Interventions aimed at improving the parent–adolescent communication may provide a path toward preventing body weight dissatisfaction and help adolescents to potentially have a healthy weight and a positive body image.
Learning Objectives:
The aim of the study is to investigate the relationship between adolescents self-reported body weight dissatisfaction (dieting or perceiving a need to diet) and mother/ father-adolescent communication in adolescents from 24 countries participating in the HBSC 2001/2002 survey. We hypothesized that both girls and boys who indicated difficulty in talking to father/ mother would report higher odds for body weight dissatisfaction. In addition, we explored variation in the relationship between body weight dissatisfaction and communication with parents among the 24 Western countries.
Keywords: Adolescents, International, Communication
Qualified on the content I am responsible for because: PhD in child psychology (Dalhousie University, 2003), professor at Carleton University, member of HBSC Study network, and co-author on this paper which is now under review for publication.
Any relevant financial relationships? No
I agree to comply with the American Public Health Association Conflict of Interest and Commercial Support Guidelines, and to disclose to the participants any off-label or experimental uses of a commercial product or service discussed in my presentation.