Eating disorders (ACS) are defined as disorders related to eating and therefore related to food or behavioral changes that persist in the long term and involve a deterioration of the physical health of the person, as well as a deterioration of the psychological, social and social perimeter of the person. most likely family. –
Despite being a psychopathological disorder of great socio-health interest for its prevalence in the population, and more particularly for its impact on the adolescent group, it is estimated that up to 4% of adolescents and young adults have this condition in the West. world?, studies on relatives of people with eating disorders are still scarce.
- This becomes an inevitable and urgent challenge.
- Because given the huge percentage of adolescents at risk of developing an eating disorder.
- It is a problem that can carry over into the family environment and have a significant impact.
It is also very relevant, as family members can also have a major influence during the disorder.
Many studies seek to find not only the factors that trigger ACT, but also those that underpin it, models such as the multifactor Vohs, Bardone, Joiner, Abramson and Heatherton (1999) have already demonstrated the role of perfectionism in the development of symptoms of anorexia nervosa.
This perfectionism, in more recent studies, such as that carried out by the National Autonomous University of Mexico in 2010, is defined as an extreme concern for error, or as an indecision at the need to act.
They also highlight body dissatisfaction and negative self-image, the onset of a strict diet, weight gain, family conflicts or constant criticism of weight and physique as risk factors for acl development.
As for the factors that maintain the pathology, there is restriction of food, purgative behaviors and a very small social environment, in which the attitudes of the relatives appear.
Expressed emotion (EE) is defined as the style of emotional communication within the family and is also postulated as a factor in maintaining eating disorders. The EE is a construction site that began to develop in the 1950s at the London Institute of Social Psychiatry.
In a first study, it was observed that most relapses of people with schizophrenia occurred in those who, after being hospitalized for a season, returned to the family’s uterus, including their parents or partners.
As a result, research was conducted to determine what elements of the family were related to the relapses of those returning home. Brown, Birley and Wing discovered three aspects related to the development and maintenance of the pathology:
Other authors, such as Muela and Godoy, also include tenderness and positive reviews. In parents of people with TCA, the EE construct has similar aspects to those found in previous research on schizophrenia.
All of them seem to play a fundamental role in the pathology of the person or family member with ADHD.
When there are high levels of critical commentary, hostility and emotional overimplication, the family context of the person with the disorder is a more coercive, more reserved and much less flexible context.
Longitudinal studies of litter show that there are differences between THEEs that last less time, compared to those that become chronic, it was observed that only 6% of the parents of these people who recovered quickly from an eating disorder had high levels of express emotion (EE).
Numerous authors have also studied the relationship of emotion expressed in family members and the development of pathology, not just maintenance, once developed. The results showed that 55-60% of relatives of people with eating disorders had a high EE.
For all the above, the need to include part of psychoeducation and, if necessary, intervention in the family of the person with APS (mental anorexia, bulimia and compulsive hyperphagia) is reiterated.
A good family emotional adjustment, in which all members are able to control their emotions and rely on emotional ventilation at the right times, seems to be vitally important for the improvement of people with eating disorders.
Family members’ participation is of paramount importance, especially when most people affected by LCA are adolescents.
However, they should not be expected to know how to handle an AAW, so the idea of including family members throughout treatment is raised, as not only will the EA be the subject of an intervention.
Thus, it is necessary to apologise to family members, who need to learn to stop labeling the person with an eating disorder, to reinforce alternative behaviors and improvements of the person with ADHD and to emanate calm and patience in the face of a disease that can endure. .