Emerging Ideas. How Do Low‐Income Mothers Talk to Children About Weight and Body Shape?

• Published date: 01 December 2021
• Author: Katherine W. Bauer,Jacqueline M. Branch,Danielle P. Appugliese,Megan H. Pesch,Alison L. Miller,Julie C. Lumeng,Niko Kaciroti
• Date: 01 December 2021
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/fare.12550

K W. BUniversity of Michigan

J M. BAkron Children’s Hospital

D P. AAppugliese Professional Advisors

M H. P, A L. M, J C. L,  N KUniversity of

Michigan

Emerging Ideas.

How Do Low-Income Mothers Talk to Children

About Weight and Body Shape?

Objective: Identify mothers’ perceptions of how

they talk about weight and body shape with their

children and examine how approaches vary by

mother and child characteristics.

Background: Youth who report that their par-

ents talk with them about their weight experience

poor health. However,very little is knownabout

the content of these conversations.

Method: Mothers and their 6- to 11-year-old

children (N=188 dyads) participated in a

mixed-methods study. Themes in mothers’

responses to the interview question “How do

you talk to your child about weight or body

shape?” were identied, and latent class analy-

sis was used to characterize patterns of weight

and shape talk.

Results: Seven themes of weight and shape

talk were identied, including talking about

“Healthy Habits” (39.9%), “Avoids Weight

and Body Talk” (21.8%), and tells “Cautionary

Department of Nutritional Sciences, University of

Michigan School of Public Health, University of Michi-

gan, 1415 Washington Heights, Ann Arbor, MI 48109

(kwbauer@umich.edu).

Key Words: maternal behavior, parent–child relations,

parenting, pediatric obesity,weight talk.

Tales” (18.6%). Three patterns emerged from

themes: talk to promote health, avoid talking

about weight and shape, and talk to build

children’s self-esteem. Mothers of children with

obesity were more likely to talk to promote

health versus other patterns.

Conclusion: The content of family conversa-

tions about weight and shape is diverse.

ImplicationsforEmergingIdeas: Future

research is needed to understand the impacts

of specic ways parents talk about weight and

shape.

Weight talk, dened as comments made by

family members about children’s weight or that

encourage weight loss (Golden et al., 2016), has

been associated with adverse outcomes among

children, including body dissatisfaction, depres-

sive symptoms, disordered eating behaviors,

excessive weight gain, and obesity (Bal-

antekin et al., 2014; Bauer et al., 2013; Berge

et al., 2013; Neumark-Sztainer et al., 2010;

Quick et al., 2013). However, nearly all studies

of weight talk have measured children’s percep-

tions; few have included parents’ perspectives

(Gillison, 2016). Family Communications

Patterns Theory posits that the quality and

Family Relations 70 (December 2021): 1477–14841477

DOI:10.1111/fare.12550