Abstract
OBJECTIVE: To examine the impact of ethnic group on aspects of weight concern and to assess the role of family values in explaining this association.
SUBJECTS AND MEASURES: 20 Asian and 20 white daughters gave a questionnaire to their mother, father and sibling closest in age, concerning their profile characteristics (age, education) values and beliefs and completed a matched questionnaire containing additional measures of aspects of their weight concern.
RESULTS: The results showed no differences between the white and Asian daughters in terms of either their restrained eating or body dissatisfaction. However, the results showed consistent differences between the members of the two family groups in terms of the value placed on achievement, child/parent relationships, competition, the role of women, and some differences in terms of materialism, the value of appearance and their idea of the perfect female body. The results were then analysed to assess the best predictors of the daughter’s weight concern. Whereas restrained eating was related to the mother’s rating of the value of physical appearance and the sibling’s ratings of competitiveness and a non-traditional role for women (40% of the variance), the results showed that body dissatisfaction was related to the daughter’s rating of materialism, having a father who preferred a thinner female body, the siblings ratings of a non-traditional role for women, degree of concordance within the family concerning the value of competitiveness and the educational level of the ‘head of the family’ (49% of variance).
CONCLUSION: Whereas a dichotomous model of ethnicity may be insufficient to explain differences in aspects of weight concern, an expanded model of cultural beliefs may be a more powerful construct. Accordingly, the absence or presence of differences in weight concern according to ethnic group may simply reflect the extent to which the different groups chosen for analysis are differentiated by these predictive values.
This is a preview of subscription content, access via your institution
Access options
Subscribe to this journal
Receive 12 print issues and online access
$259.00 per year
only $21.58 per issue
Buy this article
- Purchase on Springer Link
- Instant access to full article PDF
Prices may be subject to local taxes which are calculated during checkout
Similar content being viewed by others
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Ogden, J., Chanana, A. Explaining the effect of ethnic group on weight concern: finding a role for family values. Int J Obes 22, 641–647 (1998). https://doi.org/10.1038/sj.ijo.0800641
Received:
Revised:
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/sj.ijo.0800641
Keywords
This article is cited by
-
Maternal Weight Control Behaviors for Preschoolers Related to Children’s Gender
Journal of Child and Family Studies (2018)
-
Comparison of eating disorders and body image disturbances between Eastern and Western countries
Eating and Weight Disorders - Studies on Anorexia, Bulimia and Obesity (2008)
-
The association between global self-esteem, physical self-concept and actual vs ideal body size rating in Chinese primary school children
International Journal of Obesity (2004)
-
Which Metric of Relative Weight Best Captures Body Fatness in Children?
Obesity Research (2003)
-
Weight satisfaction and self-esteem among teenagers in Helsinki, Moscow and Tallinn
Eating and Weight Disorders - Studies on Anorexia, Bulimia and Obesity (2003)