I just left a presentation here at the International Conference on Eating Disorders on risk factors that affect prognosis for adolescents treated for anorexia. When the presenter finished her thorough treatment of the topic, a researcher from the UK, Dr. Bryan Lask, stood up to make a comment.

He noted that he and his colleagues had done a number of similar studies, and that they found recovery rates for anorexia that were consistently very similar to the presenter's numbers -- about 50%. He went on to say that, oddly, risk factors generally are inconsistent across the studies that they had done. In other words, it was very difficult to find anything that consistently correlated to the development of anorexia.

There was one exception, he said -- parental dysharmony.

It might make sense to consider, then, that one of the most powerful ways to guard against anorexia nervosa in a child is to strengthen the relationship between the child's parents. There's more than one benefit to deepening healthy intimacy between father and mother.

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