‘And yet I’m an adult now’. The influence of parental criticism on women’s body satisfaction/dissatisfaction during emerging adulthood

Abstract

Body dissatisfaction is widely recognized as an important public health concern mainly for women because of its increasing incidence worldwide. The aim of this exploratory study was to test the predictive role of family influence on body satisfaction (BS) among young Italian women, during a decade conceptualized as ‘emerging adulthood’. Instruments designed to assess BS, appearance-focused parental comments, maternal and paternal criticism were administered to 688 women aged between 18 and 28 years (M age = 23.40; SD = 2.33). Two regression analyses were used with life satisfaction levels, parental comments, and maternal/paternal criticism as independent variables to explain variance in BS for younger (18–23 years) and older (24–28 years) women. The data reveal an interesting difference in the influence of parental criticism on BS depending on the age cohort: maternal criticism negatively predicts BS in younger women, while paternal criticism is a risk factor for BS in older women.

Keywords

• parental comments
• body satisfaction
• maternal criticism
• paternal criticism
• emerging adulthood