Longitudinal relationships between fathers’, mothers’, and adolescents’ restrained eating

Abstract

Family members can exert important direct and indirect influence on the eating behaviours of children; these include modelling, and transmission of preferences, beliefs, and attitudes. Current studies on family similarities in dieting behaviours however show inconsistent results. The present study examines family similarities and reciprocal influences on restrained eating, using data of a longitudinal three-wave full-family study consisting of both parents and two adolescent sibling children (aged 13–16 at time 1) from 404 Dutch families. All family members reported their restrained eating behaviours at three annual waves. Cross-sectional associations were found between parents’ and adolescents’ restrained eating, but overall no transmission of restrained eating was found between family members over time. Similarities were higher between daughters and mothers compared to sons and mothers. Longitudinally, no differences in the results were found between boys and girls, or between adolescents with high or low quality relationships with their parents.