Parents' Roles in Development of Eating Disorders: How Important is the Father?

1) Colleen Thompson, an expert on eating disorders, explains, “Many teenagers need a role model and someone to look up to. Unfortunately, too many of them choose fashion models or actresses as role models, they paste picture of them all over their rooms, and some will resort to dangerous methods of weight control to try and look like their idols.” (J1)

Adding to this, it is very common that the father does not want his daughter to be too gorgeous. The saying all beauty comes with a price goes hand in hand with what the fathers of these girls wish. They also want their daughters to settle down with a man and have children that just keep coming. Sadly, this is something society has deemed acceptable, and many young girls are now trying to be what they know as the stereotype of “pretty” and “perfect.” Suddenly, it is all that matters and what they want simply is not important, they are not able to be their own kind of beautiful. Women and young ladies all over the world see models, actors, actresses. People who have the so called “perfect body” and face. A chiseled abdomen and prominent jaw line for guys. Hair that you can run your hands through. Flawless smile full of pearly white teeth. A completely flat stomach with a hint of abs for girls. Long, long legs that go on for miles. Flowing, glossy, shiny hair and a button nose. Big wide eyes. To the world these features make someone beautiful. In fact, in order to be a Victoria's Secret Runway Model, you must be at least 5’10. When these young girls, and guys see these superficial people they assume that they too must look like them. They do not know that these are people who probably starve themselves, truly experiencing the saying “beauty is pain.” Beauty should be

     The family tends to play an important role in the development of eating disorders. Males tend to have very strict, domineering fathers who encouraged development in sports. It has also been recognized that many men with eating disorders may not have had a father figure around at all. (Zerbe, 1992) Their mothers have been described as overprotective and controlling. (Romero, 1994) Adolescent boys with eating disorders relate that parents or siblings are usually on diets as well and there tends to be an emphasis on food and dieting

In this article “Fighting Anorexia: No One to Blame” it discusses the struggles and challenges children face as young as 8 years old and teens from 13 to 18 years of age when dealing with the eating disorder “Anorexia Nervosa.” Which is defined in our text as an “eating disorder characterized by self-starvation” (Bee, pg. 384). The staff of “Newsweek” also discuss who or what is to blame for anorexia nervosa in the past parents have been blamed when their children have shown signs in regards to this disorder. Research has shifted from blaming the parents to the possibility anorexia might have some links to mental disorder, genetics or even environmental factors which can influence the disorder. Lastly, the article discusses various

In hopes of her daughter becoming the “ideal” woman, the mother wants to ensure her daughter upholds her sexual purity. The mother continuously discusses on how her daughter should behave in a relationship with a man. One of these behaviors being the way she talks to men, so they don’t confuse her with being a “slut”. Another warning her mother gave to her was the way she dressed, for the mother knows that a person’s clothing choice reflects on their character. The mother believes that communication and appearance relate to the reputation a female withholds from a male.

Biological and familial influences can lead specifically to early-age distortion eating disorders. When compared with mothers of daughters in a non- clinical control group, mothers of adolescent girls with disordered eating patterns showed greater eating disturbance, had a longer history of dieting, and wanted their daughters to lose more weight (Pike and Rodin,

a physiological need as opposed to a physical one. According to the Mirror Mirror Organization (2014), it is a dangerous misconception that the only people suffering from eating disorders are white, middle-class, straight women. However, “the truth is that eating disorders do not discriminate and affect people of all ages, racial/ethnic backgrounds, abilities, socioeconomic status’, gender identities, and sexual orientations” (Mulheim, Farrar, & VanDemark, 2014). Programs aimed to prevent the occurrences of eating disorders are an important part of both primary prevention and healthy childhood development. In the interest of this evidence-based practice proposal project, I will be exploring education regarding eating disorders with an emphasis on school-aged females. This leads to the question: In school-aged females, is there a reduction in the instance of eating disorders in schools where education is provided versus schools who do not educate about eating disorders?

This studies goal was to examine the extent to which family environment and attachment styles are concurrently related to eating disorders.

In a review article on anorexia and family issues, Yager describes how anecdotal reports of child-parent interactions and personality styles of parents show a great deal of variability. The relationships between mothers and daughters are reported by some to be rejecting and by others to be ambivalent or overinvolved. Although these mother-child interactions are contradictory, several general themes are present (Blinder, Chaitin & Goldstein, 1988). Anorexic mothers tend to focus all of their attention on the well-being of their children (Minuchin, Rosman & Baker, 1978). They set high expectations and foster ambitions for external achievement. The mothers of anorexics may be involved socially, they usually lack intimate friends. In many cases, the daughter becomes the mother's confidant. This overinvolvement creates separation difficulty later in life (Blinder, Chaitin & Goldstein, 1988). A great amount of variability exists in father-daughter dyads as well. Some anorexic fathers have been described as kind and affectionate, while others have been described as passive and ineffectual. These fathers are often peripheral to the family (Blinder, Chaitin & Goldstein, 1988).

This paper will talk about some of the things that people with eating disorders go through in their daily lives and give a general description of what exactly an eating disorder is and why it is important. Schwitzer Alan M., Bergholz Kim, Dore Terri, and Salimi Lamieh all talk about a few things that they did in order to prevent eating disorders among college woman as well as some of the treatment methods and preventative measure someone can take in order to prevent something like this from happening again. It will also talk about something called the “three-legged stool” which was created by Sackett et al. in 1996. The “three-legged stool” is a treatment method for eating disorders which considers research evidence, patient preference and values, and clinical expertise. There will also be some evidence included to explain why those three things are important in treating eating disorders. Carol B. Peterson, Carolyn Black Becker, Janet Treasure, Roz Shafran, and Rachel Bryant-Waugh all mention how these things will help optimize treatment of eating disorders because patients won’t be forced into doing something that they don’t enjoy in order to overcome their eating disorder. The last thing that will be talked about is a case study conducted by Joanna Steinglass, Karin Foerde, Katrina Kostro, Daphna Shohamy, and Timothy Walsh. This case study attempts to develop a new paradigm

In the article of "Parental Mental Illness and Eating Disorder in Offspring", Bould and other researchers (2015) presented a study which investigated the causal relationship between parental mental illness of specific types and eating disorders in their offspring (p. 383). In addition to the data from a longitudinal record-linkage study of children resided in Stockholm County in Sweden from 2001 to 2007, Bould et al. (2015) used the eating disorder status of the children and their parental mental illness information from multiple database and registers (p. 384). Bould et al. (2015) obtained the stratified incidence rates of eating disorder in children in which parents with or without mental illness (p. 386). After adjusted for any potential confounders and analyzed the adjusted hazard ratios of incidence rates of eating disorder in offspring, a conclusion was drawn that sufficient evidence was found to support the hypothesis that parental mental illnesses, including bipolar affective disorder, personality disorder, and anxiety and depression, increased the risk of eating disorders in their children (Bould et al., 2015, p. 388). In addition, Bould et al. (2015) also concluded that there was no association between drug or alcohol misuse of parents and the incidence rate of eating disorders in their offspring, and discussed possible explanation about the association they discovered (p. 390).

A family history of eating disorders. If your parent or siblings have, or had, an eating disorder, you are at a greater risk for developing one, too.

My sister is bulimic and has been in therapy for several months now. She seems to be making progress, but this eating disorder seems to rule her life nevertheless. Overwhelmed with conflicting desires, she is obsessed with food and her appearance. I see her suffer and wonder what has caused her to develop such behaviors. I know that there are several factors that can play a role in the inception of an eating disorder. Because of my sister’s problems, I have become interested in the interplay between familial relationships and bulimia. Is there a relationship between family interactions and bulimia?

Many theorists believe that family dynamics of those suffering from eating disorders may have contributed to their illness. For instance, anorexic families have sought to be closely related, with perfectionistic attitudes, and higher socioeconomic status. Cole-Detke & Konak (1996) described anorexic families as dependent on their child which results in the sufferer being tired to their needy parents by stopping their daughter from actually developing her own autonomy and sense of separation into the world. According to attachment theory, disordered eating behaviors and the attempt to control

The title of the article is The Unique and Additive Associations of Family Functioning and Parenting Practices with Disordered Eating Behaviors in Diverse Adolescents. This article was written by Jerica M. Berge with the Department of Family Medicine and Community Health at the University of Minnesota Medical Schools in Minneapolis; Melanie Wall with the Department of Biostatistics at Columbia University in New York, NY, as well as the Division of Biostatics of the Department of Psychology and the Mailman School of Public Health at Columbia University in New York, NY; Nicole Larson, Marie E. Eisenberg, Katie A. Loth, and Dianne Neurmark-Sztainer of the Division of Epidemiology and Community Health at the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis; Marie E. Eisenberg was also affiliated with the Division of Adolescent Health and Medicine with the Department of Pediatrics at the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis. This article was found in the Journal of Behavioral Medicine and published by Springer Science and Business Media online on November 30, 2012.