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Maternal Experiences of Parenting Girls who are Perceived as Overweight or at Risk for Becoming So: Narratives of Uncertainty, Ambivalence and Struggle
Author(s) -
Ogle Jennifer Paff,
Park Juyeon
Publication year - 2018
Publication title -
children and society
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.538
H-Index - 58
eISSN - 1099-0860
pISSN - 0951-0605
DOI - 10.1111/chso.12258
Subject(s) - ambivalence , overweight , constructivist grounded theory , psychology , developmental psychology , dilemma , interpersonal communication , narrative , negotiation , grounded theory , social psychology , qualitative research , medicine , sociology , obesity , social science , philosophy , linguistics , epistemology
This work explored U.S. mothers’ experiences of parenting young adolescent girls who are perceived by their mothers as overweight or at risk for becoming so. Data were collected via in‐depth interviews with 13 mothers and were analysed using a constructivist grounded theory approach. Many mothers experienced socializing their daughters about issues of the body, weight, diet, and health as marked by uncertainty, ambivalence and struggle, particularly relative to four subthemes: mothers’ embodiment as challenge to ‘good mothering’, negotiating a dilemma of the ‘healthy mind’ versus the ‘healthy body’, managing discipline: how much to intervene?, and the challenge of interpersonal dynamics.