N. Carbonneau et al.

/ Body Image 33 (2020) 106–114 109

Fig. 1. Hypothesized Model. Note. Variables in dark gray were reported by mothers and variables in light gray were reported by daughters. BMI = body mass index.

Table 1 the following fit indices: Normed Fit Index (NFI), Non-Normed

Results of t-tests comparing the mean values of body mass index, self-compassion,
Fit Index (NNFI), Goodness of Fit Index (GFI), Comparative Fit
body esteem, and emotional eating of mothers and their daughters.
Index (CFI), Standardized Root Mean Square (SRMR), and Root
Mothers Daughters t(1, Mean Square Error of Approximation (RMSEA). The cut-off values
Variable
190)
M SD M SD for those fit indices were NFI > .90, NNFI > .90, GFI > .90, CFI > .93,
SRMR < .10 and RMSEA < .05 (Hair, Anderson, Tatham, & Black,
Body mass index 26.528 4.445 24.469 4.311 5.714***
Self-compassion 3.469 0.599 3.039 0.601 8.294*** 1992). The model included one exogenous variable (i.e., mothers’
Body esteem 3.205 0.835 3.252 0.812 −0.605 BMI) and seven endogenous variables (i.e., mothers’ and daugh-
Emotional eating 2.051 0.856 2.295 0.863 −3.455** ters’ self-compassion, body esteem, and emotional eating as well
Note. N = 191 mother-daughter dyads. BMI was calculated using self-reported height as daughters’ BMI). Fig. 1 illustrates the full hypothesized path anal-
and weight. Self-compassion and body esteem were rated on 5-point Likert-type ysis model.
scales ranging from 1 to 5. Emotional eating was rated on a 4-point Likert-type scale Bias-corrected bootstrapped 95 % confidence interval (CI) esti-
ranging from 1 to 4. ** p < .01; *** p < .001.
mates of indirect effects (see Preacher & Hayes, 2008; Shrout
& Bolger, 2002) were also conducted to test whether (1) body
& Kenny, 2000; Kenny, 1996). Analyses based on the APIM take into esteem mediates the intrapersonal negative association between
account the covariance and statistical dependency that naturally women’s self-compassion and emotional eating, (2) daughters’ self-
exist within dyads. The APIM uses the dyad as the unit of analysis, compassion and body esteem mediate the negative association
and allows the estimation of actor and partner effects separately. between mothers’ self-compassion and daughters’ emotional eat-
That is, the APIM can test not only whether one’s level of self- ing, and (3) mothers’ body esteem and emotional eating mediate
compassion is related to one’s eating behavior, but also whether it the negative association between mothers’ self-compassion and
predicts one’s mother/daughter’s eating behavior over and above daughters’ emotional eating. Bootstrapping is a statistical tech-
the effect of her own self-compassion. In the present study, all APIM nique that resamples a single dataset several times to create many
analyses were conducted using the MIXED program in SPSS. All pre- simulated samples. In other words, large numbers of smaller sam-
dictor variables were centered on the grand sample mean (Aiken ples are repeatedly drawn from the original sample. As a result,
& West, 1991). Actor and partner effects are reported as regression indirect effects can be statistically estimated as well as their 95 %
coefficients. confidence intervals. In the present research, the confidence inter-
Structural equation modeling analyses were performed using val was bias corrected given that this correction is believed to
Amos 24 (Arbuckle, 2016). The models were also run in EQS improve power and Type 1 error rates (Mackinnon, Lockwood, &
version 6.2 (Bentler, 1989) to obtain additional fit statistics. Adjust- Williams, 2004).
ment between predicted and observed data was investigated using

Table 2
Correlations among the study variables.

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8

1. Mothers’ BMI 1 −.093 −.537*** .312*** .353*** −.096 −.135 .086

2. Mothers’ self-compassion 1 .571*** −.325*** .028 .288*** .201** −.222**
3. Mothers’ body esteem 1 −.518*** −.086 .222** .140 −.196**
4. Mothers’ emotional eating 1 .038 −.178* −.112 .353***
5. Daughters’ BMI 1 .013 −.432*** .201**
6. Daughters’ self-compassion 1 .520*** −.338***
7. Daughters’ body esteem 1 −.439***
8. Daughters’ emotional eating 1

Note. N = 191 mother-daughter dyads. BMI = body mass index. * p < .05, ** p < .01; *** p < .001.