Transgenerational transmission of eating disorders: the role of eating disorder symptoms and socio-cultural attitudes.

Abstract

Objective: Eating disorders may be transmitted from one generation to the others through various trajectories, including genetic and epigenetic factors, parent-child relationships, and behavioral factors. In the current study, we examined whether parents' eating disorder symptoms and sociocultural attitudes toward appearance are associated with the diagnosis of an eating disorder or the level of eating disorder symptoms among female adolescents and young adults, and the nature of these associations. We also examined whether fathers' and mothers' effects on offsprings' eating disorder symptoms interact.

Method: The study included 65 triads of mothers, fathers, and their female offspring aged 11-22 (N = 195). Thirty-two offspring were diagnosed with an eating disorder and recruited from the in-patient eating disorder unit in a public hospital. The remaining 33 offspring, who formed the control group, were recruited via social media platforms.

Results: In contrast to our expectations and previous findings, mothers' and fathers' levels of eating disorder symptoms and sociocultural attitudes toward appearance were negatively associated with their offspring's eating disorder symptoms. Also, inconsistent with mental health studies that showed that the behaviors and attitudes of one parent are exacerbated or attenuated by the other parent, we failed to find an interaction effect between mothers' and fathers' variables on their offspring's level of eating disorder symptoms.

Discussion: The current study adds to the limited number of studies that focused on fathers in the transgenerational transmission of eating disorders and encourages further research on the effects of each parent and the combined effects of both in the development and maintenance of eating disorders in their offspring.