Living With Food: The Science Supporting Eating Disorder Treatment

Do families cause eating disorders?

Nope.

Really, we don’t need to write a post longer than that one word. In fact, there is no evidence that families cause eating disorders, and there has never been any evidence that families cause eating disorders. There has been a significant amount of unfounded and unjustified suspicion over the years about families and causation, which is not unique to eating disorders. Families have been speculated to be the cause of every psychiatric disorder from schizophrenia to bipolar disorder to autism for as long as these disorders have existed.

On the other hand, families can cure eating disorders. We recently discussed this fact in reference to the new data on family based therapy. Some people might ask: “If families can cure eating disorders, doesn’t this imply that they were part of the problem at some point in the past?” Again, the answer to this is no. The fact that families have a role in the treatment and in fact are the most powerful catalysts in helping their children does not in any way imply that they had anything to do with causation. It would be no more true to link these two things than it would be to say that doctors who prescribe chemotherapy cause cancer.

So no, families do not cause eating disorders. But they can cure them.
 
For more information on the effectiveness of Family Based Therapy, please visit the following links:

F.E.A.S.T.

Maudsley Parents

New Research on the Maudsley Method for the Treatment of Anorexia

Should you have any questions or comments regarding this post please email blog@eatingdisorderscleveland.org.

Contributions by Sarah Emerman