There is more to anorexia than inherited genetics, personality and lack of coping skills. The additional element is that these important factors interact in complex ways with family and environmental issues that also play an important role in creating and maintaining eating disorders such as anorexia.
Researchers have found that in some cases, families are over-involved and enmeshed with the person that is anorexic. Some people with eating disorders say they feel smothered in overprotective families. "Enmeshed" is a psychological term describing an overly-intimate relationship in which the emotional and psychological boundaries between two people become obscure that it becomes difficult for them to act separately. Wives in an enmeshed relationship may feel powerless to develop a separate identity from their husband. For instance, she may not be able to go shopping with the girls without her husband wanting to take her shopping. As a result, the woman tries to exert control by the only means she knows how, by controlling her food intake.
On the other hand other women with eating disorders feel abandoned, misunderstood and alone. Their husbands and friends may overvalue physical appearance and unwittingly contribute to an eating disorder. The same holds true in families who make critical comments, even in jest, about their children's bodies.
According to the studies, families that include an anorexic person tend to be overprotective, rigid and ineffective at resolving conflict. If it's a teen, sometimes mothers are emotionally cool and fathers may be physically or emotionally absent. At the same time there are high expectations of achievement and success.
Adults and children learn not to disclose doubts, fears, anxieties and imperfections. Instead they try to solve their problems by manipulating weight and food, trying to achieve the appearance of success even if they do not feel successful.
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Ruthan Brodsky
