The Impact of Body Mass Index on the Associations between Pubertal Timing and Self-harm, Depression, and Self-esteem in Adolescent Girls

somatic symptoms in adolescents is important in designing or improving interventions for these patients. Methods: Participants were 141 middle school adolescents, aged 11to 15-years, with a mean age of 12.33-years (SD 1⁄4 1.22). Male participants made up 43.3% of the sample. Participants were asked to complete a questionnaire packet, with up to 20 students participating at one time. Portions of the questionnaire examined for this study included data from the Youth Self Report (Achenbach & Rescorla, 2001) and the Parental Authority Questionnaire (Buri, 1991), both of which have been shown to have adequate reliability and validity. Mediational analyses were performed (Baron & Kenny, 1986), followed by bootstrapping analytical methods to determine significance of the mediation effect. Results: Authoritarian Parenting Style (AP) was a significant predictor of Somatic symptoms above and beyond Anxiety Problems, ß 1⁄4 .15, p1⁄4 .04. The inclusion of Authoritarian parenting style into the model resulted in a combined 39% of variance in Somatic Problems, overall R 1⁄4 .63, p < .001. When controlling for AP, the beta weight for Anxiety problems dropped from .62, p < .001 to .58, p < .001. Permissive Parenting Style and Authoritative Parenting Style were not significantly associated with Somatic Problems. Conclusions: Although AP, characterized by high levels of control and low levels of warmth, was not a full mediator in the current analyses, it was a significant predictor of somatic complaints for adolescents in this sample. This finding provides support for the addition of parenting-based interventions for children who have anxiety, and in particular, have somatic symptoms. Interventions that target both the individual adolescent and their families could have positive impacts on number of medical visits, school attendance, and distress experienced by these adolescents. Future research should explore such interventions. Sources of Support: None.