How perceived parental bonding affects self-concept and drive for thinness: A community-based study

The main aims of the present study were to investigate the relationship between perceived parental bonding and self-concept, and whether these variables have an effect on eating disturbances vulnerability by testing a mediation model. We screened 3158 Italian high school students (1132 males and 2026 females), ranging in age from 14 to 18 years old, by means of self-report measures of parental behavior as perceived by the offspring, eating disturbance propensity and self-concept. Weight and height were also measured. The link between a parental bonding behavior characterized by low paternal care and by maternal overprotection and a dysfunctional eating attitude (expressed by the drive for thinness) resulted significant and was found to be perfectly mediated by adolescents’ self-concept. Moreover, our results showed that the impact of self-concept for the drive for thinness (and hence on eating psychopathologies) is moderated by the participants’ body mass index and gender, but not by age. We consider this evidence of study to be useful for the prevention and treatment of eating related problems in adolescence