Parents and prevention: A systematic review of interventions involving parents that aim to prevent body dissatisfaction or eating disorders

Abstract

Although a greater focus on engaging and retaining parents is needed, this review demonstrates that a small number of prevention studies with parents have led to significant reductions in risk of body image and eating problems, and future research is indicated.

Randomized controlled trial of an online mother-daughter body image and well-being intervention.

“…Importantly, interventions targeting parents can harness the powerful protective role parents can play by equipping them with tools to use with their children to foster positive body image. This could include helping their children to develop media literacy in order to resist appearance-related sociocultural pressures, and focusing on non-appearance related attributes and achievements (Hart, Cornell, Damiano, & Paxton, 2014). Such interventions also provide an opportunity to support parents to develop their own positive body image, so that they are better able to role model positive body image behaviours and attitudes to their children.…”

Parent-Daughter Relationships and Disordered Eating Among Emerging Adult Women From the Czech Republic

“…Furthermore, recent review papers share a common idea that there are no particular patterns in family functioning associated with eating disorders; rather, family functioning is diverse (Holtom-Viesel & Allan, 2014;Konstantellou, Campbell, & Eisler, 2012;Le Grange, Lock, Loeb, & Nicholls, 2010). Invariably, these researches also agree that family has an important role to play in the development of disordered eating behaviors (Hart, Cornell, Damiano, & Paxton, 2015;Konstantellou et al, 2012;Le Grange et al, 2010;Steinberg & Phares, 2001), and that attention should be given to potential areas in the family that may work as protective factors and are key for prevention and intervention (Konstantellou et al, 2012;Steinberg & Phares, 2001).…”

Improving uptake and engagement with child body image interventions delivered to mothers: Understanding mother and daughter preferences for intervention content

“…They can foster positive body image among their daughters by modelling positive attitudes and behaviours towards their own appearance (Abraczinskas, Fisak, & Barnes, 2012). To an extent, they can also protect their daughters from sociocultural appearance pressures (e.g., helping them to deconstruct unhelpful media messages) (Hart, Cornell, Damiano, & Paxton, 2015). Alternatively, maternal pressures on daughters to lose weight and appearance-related criticism prospectively predict body dissatisfaction and disordered eating among daughters (Francis & Birch, 2005;Presnell, Bearman, & Stice, 2004).…”

“…A recent systematic review of studies conducted between 1992-2013 found that involving parents in interventions designed to improve children's body image and prevent disordered eating can be effective (Hart et al, 2015). Of the twenty studies reviewed, three studies were sufficiently methodologically rigorous to isolate the effect of parental involvement on outcomes among children.…”

“…Daughters whose mothers received the intervention reported significant reductions in perceived maternal appearance pressures and their own drive for thinness. Hart et al (2015), however, concluded that most studies suffered from small parent sample sizes, often due to difficulties with recruitment and retention. Furthermore, despite a call 15 years prior to engage parents in the design of body Running head: MOTHER DAUGHTER PREFERENCES FOR INTERVENTIONS 4 image and eating disorder prevention interventions (Garber & Brooks-Gunn, 1996), they concluded that little research had met this call.…”