Why Eating Disorder Awareness Week Matters
Eating disorders have the second highest mortality rate of all mental health conditions, with one person dying every 52 minutes from lack of treatment. Eating disorder awareness week is held every February to educate the public on recognizing signs and symptoms, options for treatment, and strategies for supporting loved ones. This year’s theme is “The Time is Now”, highlighting the importance of early detection for eating disorder symptoms.
As our marriage and family therapists at Lotus are trained to work within the family system, we can’t ignore the systemic impact of family relationships on disordered eating. Eating disorders affect not just the individual, but the family system. Sometimes, disordered eating is found not in one family member, but others, as these patterns are oftentimes generational. This blog will focus on understanding eating disorders through a family systems lens, highlighting relationships, communication, family rules and expectations, and their impact on the loved one with an eating disorder.
The Ripple Effect of Eating Disorders on the Family System
Eating Disorders as a Family Issue
Eating disorders have a ripple effect on the family system. Eating disorders and family dynamics go hand in hand, as healthy communication relies on family members feeling connected and trusting. Disordered eating often runs in families where conflict avoidance, perfectionism, or enmeshment (lacking boundaries) exists.
The Role of Communication
Disordered eating is often a symptom of an inability to healthily connect in families. If unspoken rules or expectations exist in a family system, sometimes the family member with the eating disorder is using their behaviors to cope with these unhealthy patterns. Shame, secrecy, or avoidance in communication can all contribute to maintaining eating disorder behaviors. This might look like:
- >Parents not creating a safe environment for open discussions, so a child is seeking self-soothing through binging snack foods
- >Family members avoid intimacy, so one family member uses restriction to numb painful emotions
- >Multi-generational patterns exist around one parent perpetuating affairs, so the other parent develops a pattern of restricting theirs and their children’s food when their partner is on work trips
The Family System’s Influence on Recovery
Family members can play a central healing role in their loved one’s recovery. Eating disorders are emotional disorders, reliant on disconnection from others to maintain symptoms. Repairing communication may actually help reduce relapse rates, as the loved one benefits from support of stable family members when open communication is present.
Research supports this systemic approach to eating disorders, with some statistics indicating between 50% – 70% of individuals maintain recovery for an eating disorder when using family-based treatment. It’s clear that family-based support for eating disorders can make a meaningful and positive impact on recovery.
Recent Comments