Parents play a significant role in shaping the overall eating behaviours and attitudes around food and body image within their family. They are also the first source of implicit and explicit knowledge about food and food-related norms for their children. Parents further play a central role in the day-to-day management of their own and their children’s meals, from planning to preparing most meal. This role of “feeder of the family” is often, albeit not always, held by the mother and appears to be associated with great cultural and social expectations. For many mothers, this role is so important that it becomes a central part of their identity. This presentation will unveil recent research detailing how mothers’ own eating regulations (how they regulate their eating behaviours) directly influence not only their own eating style and well-being but also that of their children’s. Research identifying how a mother’s regulation of their eating behaviours interact with their children’s food responsiveness and shapes their food parenting practises will also be presented. Furthermore, this presentation will look into mothers’ definition of the ideal mother in relation to their management of the meals for their family and how this image of the ideal mother impacts their daily experiences around food and parenting as well as their overall well-being and psychological adjustment.
Geneviève Lavigne received a doctoral degree in social psychology research from the Universite du Quebec a Montreal in 2011. She then pursued a postdoctoral fellowship at McGill University’s Ingram School of Nursing. She is currently completing a second postdoctoral fellowship at the Universite du Quebec e Trois-Rivieres under the supervision of Dr. Noémie Carbonneau, Canada Research Chair in the Psychosocial Determinants of Eating Behaviours. Her current research seeks to better understand the psychosocial aspects of eating behaviours within families. Her research focuses on the experiences of parents, and especially mothers, in relations with their role in the overall planning and management of the meals for their families and how this impacts their own and their children’s psychological adjustment.