Dear Luca,

To my understanding eating disorders in early adolescence 11-13 years constitute a continuum from childhood factors. Children to traumatized parents are at greater risk for psychopathology, among others, eating disorders:

Childhood Adversities Associated With Risk for Eating Disorders or Weight Problems During Adolescence or Early Adulthood by Jeffrey G. Johnson et al.,American Journal of psychiatry, 159 Issue 3, March 2002, pp. 394-400.

I cite: "Childhood adversities may contribute to greater risk for the development of eating disorders and problems with eating and weight that persist into early adulthood. Maladaptive paternal behavior may play a particularly important role in the development of eating disorders in offspring."

Complex Trauma in Children and Adolescents (2005), Cook et al, Psychiatric Annals 35:5, pp. 390 - 398

Treatment of Complex Trauma in Young Children: Developmental and Cultural Considerations in Application of the ARC Intervention Model (2011), Arvidson et al, Journal of Child & Adolescent Trauma, 4:1, pp. 34 - 51

Disorders of Extreme Stress: The Empirical Foundation of a Complex Adaptation to Trauma (2005), van der Kolk, Roth, Sunday & Spinazzola, Journal of Traumatic Stress, Vol. 18, No. 5, pp. 389 - 399

Dear Luca,

   The attached paper may be of interest to you.

Carol

Dear Professors,

it is a real honor to receive your replies. Thank you for the precious and interesting suggestions. Forgive me if i use this occasion to share with you two papers i recently wrote on eating disorders. I hope you find them interesting.

Thank you again.

Best regards

Luca

Thank you.  Sincerely, Carol George

Dear Luca,

That is a very interesting question. In my first research about eating disorders I found that 10% of the eating disorders mentioned a severe traumatic experience of one of their parents. The impact on the eating disoredr patients was that she  (or he) tried to be very obedient as a child and never give problems their parent who already had suffered so much. The became very "caring"  for their parents: parentification of the child was often found. This research however was done more than 20 years ago, but I heard about traumatic experiences of parents quite often in the recent population of eating disorders patients. I wish you much success with your research.

Kind regards,

Greta Noordenbos

Dear professor,

thank you very much for your kind response. Your research is really interesting and seems coherent with my clinical work with patients with eating disorders. I have working with children, adolescents and adults with eating disorders for the last 15 years also assessing attachment. My present research is addressing early adolescents. In this case I am working with subjects who were not diagnosed in their childhood. rather, the onset of their disorder has occurred at 11-13 years of age. The apparent non-continuity of the eating difficulties from childhood to early adolescence may be nevertheless due to the fact that they were not assessed in infancy.

Can you please let me know the citation of your research so that I can study your interesting work and cite it in my papers?

thank again

bedt regards

Luca

Thank you!

Very interesting!

Béatrice