108 N. Carbonneau et al.
/ Body Image 33 (2020) 106–114
regarding their attitudes and behaviors related to body and eating
(e.g., Elfhag & Linné, 2012). However, it is not yet clear to what
extent these associations persist when daughters reach adulthood.
Studying dyads of mothers and their adult daughters will increase
the understanding of whether mothers have a long-lasting influ-
ence on their daughter or whether similarities between them are
less evident once daughters become more independent from their
mother and are most likely exposed to other sources of social influ-
ence (e.g., romantic partners).
In the present research, we examined whether daughters of
self-compassionate mothers were likely to have a more positive
relationship with their body and food. This research proposed
to test an integrative model, positing that higher levels of self-
compassion in mothers may be associated with lower levels of
daughters’ emotional eating through (1) mothers’ more positive
body attitude and eating behavior and (2) daughters’ more positive
self- and body-related attitudes. This research investigated both the
intrapersonal and intergenerational associations between mothers’
and daughters’ accepting attitudes toward themselves and their
bodies (i.e., self-compassion and body esteem) and eating behav-
iors (i.e., emotional eating). First, given that mothers’ attitudes
and behaviors related to food and body image are often trans-
mitted to their daughters (e.g., Arroyo et al., 2017), we expected
some degree of concordance between mothers’ and daughters’ lev-
els of self-compassion, body esteem, and emotional eating. For
the same reason, we expected that mothers’ characteristics (i.e.,
self-compassion and body esteem) would better predict daughters’
emotional eating than the reverse (i.e., daughters’ characteristics
predicting mothers’ eating). Second, we hypothesized that women
who are compassionate toward themselves would report higher
body esteem, which in turn should be related to less emotional eat-
ing. We expected to find this intrapersonal pattern of associations
for both generations of women (i.e., that body esteem would medi-
ate the relationship between self-compassion and emotional eating
for both mothers and daughters). Third, we expected that daugh-
ters of self-compassionate mothers would report less emotional
eating. Both mothers’ (body esteem, emotional eating) and daugh-
ters’ (self-compassion, body esteem) characteristics were expected
to mediate this association. In addition, these associations were
expected to be found while controlling for mothers’ and daughters’
BMI. A model illustrating the hypothesized relations is presented
in Fig. 1.
2. Method
2.1. Participants and procedure
Participants were 191 dyads of mothers and their daughters
from the province of Quebec, Canada. Participants were recruited
by a professional survey firm. Mean age was 57.37 for mothers
(SD = 7.54 years) and 28.76 for daughters (SD = 6.63 years). Almost
all participants (99 % of mothers and 94.2 % of daughters) identified
as White. Most dyads (73.3 %) were not living together at the time
of the study. Participants were part of a larger study on the social
factors that influence women’s attitudes and behaviors related to
eating and body image (see also Roberts, Carbonneau, Goodman,
& Musher-Eizenman, 2020). The complete list of measures can be
found on the Open Science Framwork.
To take part in the study, women had to be aged between 18
and 40 years, or to have a daughter within this age range. Those
who agreed to participate were asked to invite their mother or
daughter, respectively, to take part in the study. Only complete
dyads were analyzed in the present research. Women interested
in participating in the study were directed to an online survey
website that contained the questionnaires. For all measures (i.e.,
self-compassion, body esteem, and emotional eating), mothers and
daughters only rated themselves, not each other. All measures were
in French. To thank participants for the time spent answering the
questionnaire, they were offered the opportunity to take part in a
prize draw to win one of 12 cash prizes of $50. Informed consent
was obtained from all participants. Ethical approval for this study
was granted by the Research Ethics Committee of the Université du
Québec in Trois-Rivières.
2.2. Measures
2.2.1. Demographic variables
Participants completed a demographic information section that
included questions on age, education, employment, ethnicity, and
current living arrangement.
2.2.2. Body mass index
Mothers and daughters’ BMI (kg/m2 ) were calculated using self-
reported height and weight. The average BMI was 26.53 (SD = 4.79)
for mothers and 24.47 (SD = 5.26) for daughters.
2.2.3. Self-compassion
Mothers and daughters completed the short (12-item) Self-
Compassion Scale (Raes, Pommier, Neff, & Gucht, 2011). A sample
item is “When I’m going through a very hard time, I give myself
the caring and tenderness I need.” Responses were scored on a 5-
point Likert-type scale ranging from 1 (Almost never) to 5 (Almost
always), with higher mean scores indicating more self-compassion.
Cronbach’s alpha was .85 for mothers and .83 for daughters.
2.2.4. Body esteem
Mothers and daughters completed the appearance and weight
subscales of the Body Esteem Scale (Mendelson et al., 2001). A sam-
ple item is “I like what I see when I look in the mirror.” Responses
were scored on a 5-point Likert-type scale ranging from 1 (Never) to
5 (Always). All items were averaged into a single score, with higher
mean scores indicating higher body esteem. Cronbach’s alpha was
.96 for both mothers and daughters.
2.2.5. Emotional eating
Mothers and daughters completed the three-item Emotional
Eating subscale from the Three Factor Eating Questionnaire (TFEQ-
R18; de Lauzon et al., 2004; Stunkard & Messick, 1985). A sample
item is “When I feel lonely, I console myself by eating.” Responses
were scored on a 4-point Likert-type scale ranging from 1 (Definitely
false) to 4 (Definitely true), with higher mean scores indicating more
emotional eating. Cronbach’s alpha was .89 for mothers and .86 for
daughters.
2.3. Statistical analyses
Means and standard deviations (see Table 1) as well as corre-
lations between the model variables (see Table 2) were obtained
using SPSS software (version 25). To measure the degree of
resemblance among dyad members, we used intraclass correlation
coefficients (ICC; Kashy & Kenny, 2000). An ICC of zero implies that
two members of the same dyad are no more similar to one another
on a given characteristic than two members of different dyads are.
Even though research usually assumes that the direction of
influence should go from mothers to daughters more so than the
other way around (e.g., Arroyo et al., 2017), we explicitly tested
this assumption by examining whether mothers’ characteristics
(i.e., self-compassion and body esteem) are more strongly related
to their daughters’ eating behavior than daughters’ characteristics
to their mothers’ eating behaviors. To do so, we first analyzed the
data using the Actor-Partner Interdependence Model (APIM; Kashy