The Role of Family Factors in the Development of Eating Pathology

Abstract

Family is the most considered ethiological factor discussed by the researchers who focus on theunderstanding of the genesis of the eating pathology found among young people. Results of thetheoretical and empirical research show the link between different family variables and development ofthe above mentioned pathology. The main goal of this assignment is to analyze the results of the previoustheoretical and empirical research, as well as the clinical practice experience about the connectionbetween different family variables and development of subclinical and clinical features of the eatingpathology. The conducted analysis showed that the research focused on contribution of family factorson the development of eating pathology can be classified in several basic directions: the research focusedon the analysis of the genetical factors, family eating habits (transmision of the evasive eating habitsthrough generations, the research focused on psychological analysis of family interaction; the role ofperceived dimensions of parental behaviour and parental functionality and finally the research focusedon the analysis of the contribution of the family structure itself. It can be concluded that even thoughthere is a significant number of research focused on the analyses of the individual contribution of alreadymentioned variables on the development of individual types of clinical and subclinical eating disorders,unambiguos data about forms of parental behaviour and functionality have not been found yet. Theanalysis of the contribution of family variables and subclinical forms of eating disorders makes theseresults even more complicated. Generally speaking, there should be more of them in the future.

Keywords

• the role of family factors in the development of eating pathology