ABSTRACT
This chapter provides a literature review on parental eating disorders and discusses the risk of the children of fathers and mothers with eating disorder histories experiencing eating, body shape, and weight concerns. The physical, cognitive, emotional, and social development of the children of parents with a history of an eating disorder may be compromised, as more feeding and eating problems, as well as related impaired outcomes, have been reported in the literature. Drs. Sadeh-Sharvit and Lock review the overarching mechanisms likely impacting the parenting practices, parental feeding habits, and children’s eating behaviors in families of fathers or mothers with eating disorders: a disrupted division of responsibilities in the feeding relationship; parental comorbidities impacting upon parental functioning; and deficits in spousal communication over child feeding and daily routines. These proposed mechanisms serve as predisposing, precipitating, and maintaining factors in the healthy development of the children of parents with eating disorders. Additionally, they also serve as targets of the Parent-Based Prevention program. The therapist’s interventions in this manualized, focused program should be planned and carried out with these concerns in mind.
