Is there a Relationship between Sexual Abuse or Incest and Eating Disorders?

Abstract

The significance of sexual conflicts in many patients with eating disorders has been well documented. However, even when these have been considered to have some degree of etiological importance, the occurrence of actual sexual trauma or incest in the early lives of these patients has been generally neglected in the literature. At one point in time, it was noted that five of six patients on an inpatient unit for eating disorders revealed an early history of sexual abuse or incest. These five cases are described. A parallel is drawn between the psychological problems experienced by victims of childhood sexual abuse and by patients with anorexia nervosa and/or bulimia. Our suspicion that these experiences may not be atypical led to the present article, which has implications for the investigation and management of eating-disordered patients.

Eating disorders—an overview

“…They note that sexual abuse appears to be a risk factor for psychiatric disorder in general among young adult women. These findings lend further support to the views of Sloan and Leichner (1986) and Jacobson and Richardson (1987) that sexual abuse is neither necessary nor sufficient for the development of eating disorders. Wooley ( 1994) has made a number of important observations about this debate.…”

The National Women's Study: Relationship of victimization and posttraumatic stress disorder to bulimia nervosa

“…When all the research findings concerning the co-occurrence of sexual trauma and eating disorder are considered together, an overwhelming majority of researchers interpreted their results as demonstrating that while sexual trauma may not be a sole causal factor for eating disorders, it appears to be a risk factor (Beckman & Burns, 1990;Bulik, Sullivan & Rorty, 1989;Calam & Slade, 1989;Goldfarb, 1987;Garfinkel et al, 1995;Hall, Tice, Beresford, Wooley, & Klassen, 1989;Hastings & Kern, 1994;McClelland, MynorsWallis, Fahy, & Treasure, 1991;Miller, McCluskey-Fawcett, & Irving, 1993;Oppenheimer, Howells, Palmer, & Chaloner, 1985;Palmer, Oppenheimer, Dignon, Chaloner, & Howells, 1990;Palmer & Oppenheimer, 1992;Root & Fallon, 1988;Sloan & Leichner, 1986;Steiger & Zanko, 1990;Waller, 1991;Wonderlich, Wilsnack, & Wilsnack, 1995). Furthermore, the topic of sexual trauma among eating-disordered individuals remains a central focus of many research investigations.…”

Refusing to be Marginalized: Groupwork in Mental Health Services for Women Survivors of Childhood Sexual Abuse

“…Herman and Schatzow (1989) found amongst a group of women with diagnoses of borderline personality disorder that 68% had a history of sexual abuse in childhood. Childhood sexual abuse has also been found to be associated with subsequent severe self-harm (Briere, 1992;Hall and Lloyd, 1993;Arnold, 1994;Van der Kolk, Perry and Herman, 1991); substance abuse (Rose, 1991); severe eating difficulties (Oppenheimer et al, 1985;Sloane and Leichner, 1986;Wooley, 1994;Toon, 1995) and obsessional and compulsive difficulties (Hall and Lloyd, 1993). Difficulties experienced as a result of childhood sexual abuse during pregnancy, at childbirth and post-natally including post natal depression have recently been identified (Courtois and Riley, 1992;Kitzinger, 1992;Parratt, 1994;Rhodes and Goering, 1994;Rose, 1992;Grimwood, 1996).…”