Can Parental Body Dissatisfaction Predict That of Children? A Study on Body Dissatisfaction, Body Mass Index, and Desire to Diet in Children Aged 9–11 and Their Families Solano Pinto, Natalia Sevilla Vera, Yolanda Fernández Cézar, Raquel Garrido del Águila, Dunia Body dissatisfaction Childhood Family Drive for thinness Drive for muscularity Financial support was provided by the University of Castilla La Mancha, through the research group: Health, Education, and Society (Critical Eye) co-funded by the European Fund for Regional Development (grant number 2020-GRIN- 29110). The datasets presented in this article are not readily available because individualized data from the project cannot be publically shared on a data repository due to the conditions of nondisclosure described in the consent form signed by the participants and their families. Requests to access the datasets should be directed to NS-P, natalia.solano@uclm.es. The studies involving human participants were reviewed and approved by the clinical drug research ethics committee “Complejo hospitalario de Toledo” (ref. 636). Written informed consent to participate in this study was provided by the participants’ legal guardian/next of kin. Body image has been associated with self-care and the assumption of either healthy habits or poor diets and eating disorders. As a vital element in the formation of a positive body image, the role of the family in childhood has been highlighted by a few studies. This study aimed to assess whether children's body dissatisfaction could be predicted by their parents' body dissatisfaction, body mass index (BMI), and approach to change. The sample consisted of 581 participants (366 parents and 215 children). The following instruments were used: anthropometric data, the Brief Scale of Body Dissatisfaction for Children, the IMAGE questionnaire (approach to change and drive for muscularity subscales), and the Eating Disorder Inventory-2 (body dissatisfaction and drive for thinness subscales). The results indicated that 19% of children, 22.8% of mothers, and 70.2% of fathers were overweight or obese. The multiple regression models developed for boys and girls explained 60 and 57% of the variance in body dissatisfaction, respectively. Several variables attributable to the mother (higher approach to change, higher drive for thinness, and higher BMI) and to the boys themselves (drive for muscularity, approach to change, and having a high BMI percentile) predicted a higher level of body dissatisfaction. For girls, only variables regarding themselves (approach to change, age, and BMI percentile) explained their body dissatisfaction. Relationships with the traits of the father were not detected for both models. The influence of sociocultural factors on the construction of gender and the negative consequences of mothers' dieting for aesthetic purposes, on the development of children's body image, are discussed. 2021-04-28T07:32:16Z 2021-04-28T07:32:16Z 2021-03-18 journal article Solano-Pinto N, Seville-Vera Y, Fernández-Cézar R and Garrido D (2021) Can Parental Body Dissatisfaction Predict That of Children? A Study on Body Dissatisfaction, Body Mass Index, and Desire to Diet in Children Aged 9–11 and Their Families. Front. Psychol. 12:650744. doi: [https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2021.650744] http://hdl.handle.net/10481/68157 10.3389/fpsyg.2021.650744 eng http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/es/ open access Atribución 3.0 España Frontiers Research Foundation