The Role of Childhood Emotional Abuse in Disordered Eating

Childhood emotional abuse and eating symptoms in bulimic disorders: An examination of possible mediating variables

“…In contrast, and in line with previous findings in population and clinical samples,9, 11, 12, 16 we found childhood emotional abuse to be related to severity of eating‐disorder symptoms. Ineffectiveness emerged as a significant mediator of the link between experiences of childhood emotional abuse, on the one hand, and overall severity of eating symptoms and dieting, on the other.…”

“…Although childhood physical and sexual abuses are clearly associated with the presence of an ED, we did not find the latter two types of abuse to be related, specifically, to severity of eating pathology. While this finding could be related to limited power for the assessment of a “dose‐response” relationship, it is nevertheless in line with several findings that have failed to support an association between exposure to physical or sexual abuse, on the one hand, and severity of ED symptoms, on the other 1, 8, 9, 13, 34, 35…”

“…Similarly, findings from a community study have shown that EDs are more common in individuals who report CEA than in individuals who do not 6. Likewise, in population and clinical samples alike, CEA has been found to predict severity of bulimic symptoms,7–9 pathological eating attitudes,9–11 body dissatisfaction,12, 13 and overall eating‐symptom severity 8, 14, 15. Such findings have led to the hypothesis that CEA might be a risk factor for ED development 4…”

Sticks and Stones May Break My Bones: The Effects of Emotional Abuse

“…They concluded that childhood emotional abuse could have more of a negative impact on its survivors than other factors alone. This was supported by Kennedy et al (2007), who found a direct effect on eating pathology in non-clinical participants, even when taking into account other forms of abuse, self-esteem, depression and anxiety. They went on to suggest that any examination of health issues in terms of abuse outcomes would be incomplete without considering emotional abuse as a factor.…”

Adult Recall of Childhood Psychological Maltreatment: A Comparison of Five Scales

“…Although 32 articles cite Kent and Waller, only a few actually used the Emotional Abuse scale of the CATS. In one of these, Kennedy, Ip, Samra, and Gorzalka (2007) reported that emotional abuse had a direct effect on disordered eating in a sample of college students. The CATS is a widely used measure, although utilization of the Emotional Abuse subscale is much less common and there is no cutoff to differentiate maltreated from nonmaltreated samples.…”