Prevention of eating problems and disorders: Including parents

Few, if any, prevention programs targeting eating attitudes and behaviors have included parents along with their daughters. Our goal is to review briefly how parents influence healthy and unhealthy eating practices and attitudes. Suggestions for prevention strategies that include parents are made. The nature of parent-child relationships at the transition into adolescence must be considered for prevention programming to work effectively with older children and young adolescents. Two-generational approaches must account for the biological, psychological, and social development of young adolescent girls along with parallel developmental challenges faced by their parents.