ORIGINAL PAPER Parental Influences on Elite Aesthetic Athletes’ Body Image Dissatisfaction and Disordered Eating Rita Francisco • Isabel Narciso • Madalena Alarca ˜o Published online: 10 October 2012 Ó Springer Science+Business Media New York 2012 Abstract Although different forms of parental influences on adolescents’ body image and eating disturbances have been studied, this relationship is nearly uninvestigated within the population of aesthetic athletes, a risk group for the development of eating disorders. The present study examined the role of specific family variables on the body image dissatisfaction (BID) and disordered eating (DE) of elite aesthetic athletes (n = 85) and controls (n = 142). Adolescents (M = 14.87 years, SD = 2.22) completed measures of direct influences (concern with thinness and weight teasing by parents), perceived quality of relation- ship with each parent and the overall family environment, BID and DE. Participants’ parents (223 mothers and 198 fathers) also completed measures of BID and DE. In gen- eral, parents of athletes do not present higher levels of BID or DE than do controls’ parents. Interesting differences were found between athletes’ and controls’ BID and DE predictors. Among athletes, direct parental influences are the only significant predictive family variable, which can reinforce the pressure to be thin found within elite-aesthetic contexts. The study’s findings highlight not only the importance of critical parental comments in athletes’ expression of BID and DE, but also of maternal modeling among adolescents in the general population. Such parental behavior may be an appropriate target in different pre- vention efforts. Keywords Aesthetic athletes Á Parental influences Á Body image dissatisfaction Á Disordered eating Á Predictors Introduction The impact of family influence on the development of body image and eating disturbances has been identified by several studies with patients diagnosed with eating disorders (e.g., Latzer et al. 2002; Minuchin et al. 1978) as well as with the general adolescent and young adult population (Vincent and McCabe 2000; Yanez et al. 2007). The only literature review to date about parental influence merely includes studies in the general population (Rodgers and Chabrol 2009) because, in clinical samples, parents’ behaviors and attitudes regard- ing weight, eating and body image can be influenced by their child’s diagnosis or therapeutic interventions. Most of these studies have been conducted exclusively with female ado- lescents and their mothers; however, data suggest that both mothers and fathers are important sources of influence for their child’s body image and eating habits, regardless of that child’s gender. Furthermore, this influence may take place via different mechanisms. The first mechanism, which has received much atten- tion, concerns the direct transmission of weight-related attitudes and opinions from parent to child. Both cross- sectional and longitudinal studies conducted with preado- lescents and adolescents show that critical negative com- ments about eating and weight are predictors of body image dissatisfaction, weight concerns and disordered eating (Ata et al. 2007; Kluck 2010; Pike and Rodin 1991; Smolak et al. 1999; Wertheim et al. 2002). Conversely, studies have also demonstrated that lower levels of disor- dered eating are associated with the perception of more positive messages regarding eating and weight (Gross and R. Francisco (&) Á I. Narciso Faculty of Psychology, University of Lisbon, Alameda da Universidade, 1649-013 Lisbon, Portugal e-mail: rmfrancisco@fp.ul.pt M. Alarca ˜o Faculty of Psychology and Education Sciences, University of Coimbra, Coimbra, Portugal 123 J Child Fam Stud (2013) 22:1082–1091 DOI 10.1007/s10826-012-9670-5