Early insecurity risk factor for eating disorders

Insecure attachment plays a key role in promoting the development of a negative body image in women with eating disorders, a new study shows. This suggests that the prevention and treatment of eating disorders might be strengthened by a greater concentration on early separation anxiety and insecure attachment to caregivers.

The theory of attachment, Dr. Alfonso Troisi and colleagues explain in the journal Psychosomatic Medicine, holds that early experiences shape adult personality. Infants who are emotionally cared for “develop a model of the self as loved and valued and a model of the other as loving.”

Infants, on the other hand, who experience neglect and/or rejection at the hands of a caregiver, and come to believe that they cannot depend on their caregiver, may begin to feel that they are unworthy of love.

The development of body dissatisfaction in these “insecurely attached” individuals may be related to their decreased sense of self-worth and a heightened need to be accepted by others, the researchers suggest.

Using validated questionnaires, Troisi and colleagues from the University of Rome looked for associations between early insecure attachment and separation anxiety, and body dissatisfaction in 96 women with anorexia nervosa or bulimia nervosa who were in their 20s and 30s.

Supporting their hypothesis, the team found that both insecure attachment and early separation anxiety were strongly associated with a negative body image, even after controlling for the effects of body weight and depression.

It was recently reported, in a sample of preadolescent and adolescent girls, the insecurely attached girls were far more concerned with their weight and had lower self-esteem than did securely attached girls.

“Our findings,” Troisi and colleagues write, “confirm that insecure attachment is a consistent correlate of negative body image” not only in young girls, but also in adult women, with eating disorders.

SOURCE: Psychosomatic Medicine, May-June 2006.

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