Some believe, erroneously, that eating disorder family dynamics are always to blame for the eating disorders. Families do have profound impact on their children, but there are many possible roots of eating disorder behaviors--whether anorexia, bulimia, or some other eating disorder. Plus, the roots of an eating disorder are usually determined by multiple biological and psychological factors.
And just as it's possible for an eating disorders to have some correlation to family dynamics, it's also possible that an eating disorder's development comes before and contributes to family issues. An eating disorder is stressful for all involved.
Keeping these caveats firmly in mind, a discussion of some research on the correlation between eating disorders and certain individual and family dynamics is in order. Research has examined parental attitudes, personality traits, and certain psychological symptoms.
Rules and Control in Eating Disorder Family Dynamics
Is there evidence for some sort of connection between parental control and eating disorders?
One area in which parents can exert control is through family norms, or rules. Researchers examined how eating disorder family dynamics involve rules, evaluating those on a scale from more helpful (e.g., promoting expression of emotions and shared activity) to more constraining (e.g., stifling feelings or having rigid boundaries). Eating disorder families use more rules that are constraining than other families. All kinds of family members realize it: Mothers, fathers, and siblings report more constraining rules, though not as many as those with eating disorders report.
Other research, examining bulimia, focused on mothers' psychological control of their sixth graders. There's some evidence that psychological control from moms at this stage corresponds to lower feelings of competence in their children when they reach seventh grade. The lower self-competence, in turn, correlated with bulimic behaviors in eighth grade. The researchers hypothesized that moms’ control may make it harder for adolescents to act on their own, and the adolescents may turn to binging and purging to feel more independent.
Parents' Personalities and Beliefs in Eating Disorder Family Dynamics
Are there common personality traits in parents in eating disorder families? There may be a link between parents' personality traits and the personalities of their daughters with eating disorders. One study suggested that these daughters generally appear to be harm-avoidant - shy and prone to anxiety, depression, and stress - and have low self-directedness. Those with anorexia also show high persistence. In parents, fathers of daughters with eating disorders seem to show lower persistence and lower self-directedness. When the eating disorder was restricting-type anorexia, dads were more likely to be harm-avoidant than other dads. Mothers of those with bulimia also seemed to have lower self-directedness.
The authors noted that the relationships between parental traits and those of daughters are very complex, and easy conclusions don't exist. However, they note that personalities are generally stable over time, suggesting that the parents' personality traits probably existed before their daughters' eating disorders did.
One study looked at parents’ attitudes toward body image in eating disorder families. Mothers are likely to report greater body dissatisfaction, drive for thinness, and ineffectiveness, and dads have a higher drive for thinness and stronger leanings toward perfectionism.
Some traits in eating disorder families are positive. Moms of daughters with eating disorders seem to show greater interoceptive awareness (the ability to distinguish between emotions and physical sensations) and less social insecurity, while dads in this group tend to have lower senses of ineffectiveness and less distrust.
Are those with eating disorders more likely to have mothers who have problems with food? There's lots of anecdotal evidence that moms pass on their attitudes to their kids (and especially their daughters). But at least one small study disagrees, suggesting that mothers of kids with eating disorders are no different than other mothers in areas of perfectionism, behaviors, and food attitudes. The study said that parents of those with eating disorders seem to have a higher drive for thinness, however.
In Eating Disorder Family Dynamics, Words Matter
Your spoken messages can have a significant impact on your kids' body image and eating. Parents' positive comments seem to encourage body satisfaction in their kids, while negative comments and encouragment to diet or be thin are related to body dissatisfaction. And how daughters view their bodies appears to affect how they eat.
Psychological Issues in Parents
An investigation of parents’ psychological traits studied obsessive-compulsive behaviors, hostility, depression, and anxiety in parents of those with eating disorders. All of these traits were elevated in the parents studied. Daughters with more hostile fathers tended to have longer struggles with anorexia nervosa (though researchers note that dads' hostility could be a result of their daughter’s long battles with anorexia, rather than a cause). Mothers' hostility is also a factor: Daughters of more hostile moms tend to have broader ranges of eating disorder symptoms.
