“Look beyond the weight and accept me”: Adolescent perspectives on parental weight communication
Critical weight communication between parents and their adolescent children is prevalent and harmful. However, research on adolescent perspectives about parental weight communication is limited. The present mixed-methods study aimed to address this gap using inductive thematic analysis of 1743 adolescents’ (Mage=14.61 years, SDage=2.48) preferences regarding parental weight communication in response to an open-ended prompt, and quantitative analyses to examine age, gender, race/ethnicity, and weight-related differences in subthemes. We identified 15 subthemes across these categories—the endorsement of which often varied by adolescents’ demographic and anthropometric characteristics. Across most subthemes, adolescents described adverse responses (e.g., feeling insecure, embarrassed, or hurt) when parents discussed their weight in non-preferred ways.
Full citation: Lawrence, S. E., Lessard, L. M., Puhl, R. M., Foster, G. D., & Cardel, M. I. (2023). “Look beyond the weight and accept me”: Adolescent perspectives on parental weight communication. Body Image, 45, 11-19. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.bodyim.2023.01.006