Eating disorders are a highly prevalent and often deadly form of mental illness. Having a strong support system can help to alleviate some hardships and symptoms associated with these mental illnesses. A study published in the Journal of Community & Applied Social Psychology suggests that familial relationships, specifically identifying strongly with one’s own family, may be related to fewer and less severe eating disorder-related symptoms.
Eating disorders and loneliness have a strong, bidirectional relationship, in which loneliness worsens eating disorder symptomology and having an eating disorder worsens feelings of isolation and loneliness. Previous research has established the importance of social connectivity for people suffering from eating disorders, but more specific questions have gone unanswered. This study seeks to better understand the role of familial relationships for eating disordered people and the mechanisms that underlie the relationship.
Niamh McNamara and colleagues conducted two studies, one where data was collected pre-COVID and the other during the early stages of the pandemic. Study 1 utilized 82 participants between the ages of 18 and 62, 80% of whom had been formally diagnosed with an eating disorder. They completed measures on family identification, loneliness, ED symptom severity, and demographics.
Study 2 utilized 234 participants from the US, UK, and Ireland recruited through the internet. 67% of participants reported being diagnosed with an eating disorder. Participants in Study 2 completed measures on anxiety, eating disorder symptom severity, eating disorder-related impact of COVID-19, and demographics.
Results across both studies showed that family identification was related to significantly lower levels of eating disorder symptomology. Additionally, participants with higher family identification showed lower levels of anxiety and reported less impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic.
“The results support the idea that families are an important social recovery resource for people with eating disorders and help us understand why increased connection during the COVID-19 pandemic may have benefitted them,” said McNamara, an associate professor of social psychology at Nottingham Trent University, in a news release.
“This suggests that families should be considered as an important social recovery resource and should be included in the treatment of adult eating disorders, including family-based interventions that target repairing or building of family identification and a collaborative approach to tackling loneliness.”
Mediation analyses suggest that family identification may assist in lessening symptom severity through the mechanism of reducing loneliness of the person suffering from the eating disorder. This has implications that strong family bonds can be a significant protective factor against eating disorders.
“Across our studies we found that family identification was associated with reductions in eating disorder symptom severity in general, as well as in anxiety during the early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic,” added co-author Juliet Wakefield, a senior lecturer in at Nottingham Trent University. “This was due to the decrease in loneliness which, in the second study, predicted a reduction in fears of the eating disorder-related impact of social distancing measures.”
This study made progress into better understanding the mechanisms by which family relationships can ease eating disorder symptoms. Despite this, there are limitations to note. One such limitation is that no definitive causal relationship can be drawn from the cross-sectional data utilized in this study. Additionally, both studies were predominantly white, cisgender, female participants. Future research could focus on obtaining a more diverse sample.
The study, “The link between family identification, loneliness, and symptom severity in people with eating disorders“, was authored by Niamh McNamara, Juliet R. H. Wakefield, Tegan Cruwys, Adam Potter, Bethany A. Jones, and Sara McDevitt.