Women and objectified body consciousness: mothers' and daughters' body experience in cultural, developmental, and familial context.

Hypotheses about age-related differences in objectified body consciousness (OBC; McKinley & Hyde, 1996) based on the cultural, developmental, and familial contexts of women's body experience were tested on 151 undergraduate women and their middle-aged mothers. Mothers had lower levels of surveillance (watching the body as an outside observer) and body shame (feeling one is a bad person when appearance does not meet cultural standards) than daughters. No differences were found in appearance control beliefs, body esteem, or restricted eating, even though mothers weighed more and were less satisfied with their weight than daughters. OBC was related to measures of psychological well-being in both age groups; body esteem was more strongly related to some measures of daughters' psychological well-being than mothers'. Relationships of partner and family approval and OBC and body esteem were also examined.