According to the article by, Bridget Engel, Psy.D., Natalie Staats Reiss, Ph.D., and Mark Dombeck, Ph.D., eating disorders can be caused my many family factors. When the relationship between parents and their child have unclear boundary lines from the beginning of the child’s life, this can create psychological issues that arise normally when a child becomes a teenager. When parents are so involved in their child’s life the child feels as though they have no independence. For example, if a parent tries to live their life through their child or if a parent never lets their child out of their site, by going to the child after school activities. These two factors make, the now teenage child, feel as though they have no control over themselves. Therefore, the child then tries to control the only thing they can, their body. Many do this by not eating and losing weight. If parents place high expectations on their children, then many times children want to appear successful for their parents by fitting the mold of being thin and attractive. Many girls with eating disorders come from families that expect them to be perfect. Their family holds a high regard for earning rewards from external things, whether it be an academic awards or an award for being the MVP of a sports conference.
Questions
Do you think family pressures play a large role in teenagers with eating disorders? Why?
What type of boundary lines do you think should be set between parents and children to prevent eating disorders?
Reference
BridBridget Engel, Psy.D., Natalie Staats Reiss, Ph.D., and Mark Dombeck, Ph.D. ( 2nd Feb 2007).Causes of Eating Disorders - Family Influence .MentalHelp.net.27 Oct. 2009 from http://www.mentalhelp.net/poc/view_doc.php?type=doc&id=11751&cn=46
Posted By: Chelsea Lepkowski
I think family pressures do play a large role in eating disorders. They either put to much pressure on the children and the child feels the only control they have is what they eat or they expect their children to look a certain way.
ReplyDeleteFor example my friend Kim is slightly overweight and her mom keeps expecting her to lose weight and makes comments about her weight. This could lead Kim to eventually have an eating disorder but thankfully she is happy the way she is.
-Lisa Rodriguez
I think that it is true that family pressure can be a large influence on people who have eating disorders, and thats largely where the control issue comes into play. Children striving for independence and freedom, they will control their eating and exercise habits because it is in their control. I think another HUGE part of eating disorders is peer pressure. Especially in middle school and high school there is a lot of pressure on teens to conform to a certain group in school. Girls often have skewed perception that the thinner they are, the more popular they are, and the more boys will like them. This is ridiculous, but it happens all too frequently. This pressure is harder to just ignore because in high school popularity seems like the most important thing in a persons life, and teens lack the ability to see the larger picture. Life goes on after high school, and many teenagers have trouble seeing past the here and now. This need to be popular is correlated, in their minds, with being thin, until it becomes an obsession and turns into an eating disorder.
ReplyDeleteCassidy