Marital adjustment between mothers and fathers of patients with eating disorders.
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.19230/jonnpr.2016.1.5.1064Keywords:
Marital adjustment, eating disorders, anorexia, bulimia, irrational food beliefs, aesthetic body shape model.Abstract
Objective: The association between marital adjustment and psychological disorders has been well described. The aim of this work was to analyse that adjustment between mothers and fathers of patients with Eating Disorders (ED) and its relationship with some eatingand aesthetic body shape model-related variables.
Method: A total of 104 mothers and fathers of ED patients were included in the study. They fulfilled some marital adjustment-, irrational food beliefs- and aesthetic body shape model (CIMEC)-related questionnaires.
Results: With respect to marital adjustment and areas of CIMEC, no significant correlations between mothers and fathers were found. A significant and positive correlation was found in the case of the irrational food beliefs subscale. Mothers showed higher scores on this subscale than fathers did. In addition, mothers scored higher on concerns of being thin, influence of friends, interpersonal influences, body anxiety, influence of advertisements and global CIMEC. The degree of marital adjustment was in the range obtained in clinical populations.
Conclusions: The marital adjustment among parents of ED patients is moderate, similar to the described in clinical populations, worse than the found in non-clinical populations and no specific. The more presence of irrational food beliefs in the case of mothers along with a greater influence of the current aesthetic body shape model and the distress caused by the marital maladjustment could be a negative factor to bear in mind during the therapeutic process in ED, especially when working with parents as co-therapists.
Downloads
References
Herzog DB, Greenwood DN, Dorer DJ, Flores AT, Ekeblad ER, Richards A, et al. Mortality in eating disorders: A
descriptive study. Int J Eat Disord 2000;28: 20-26.
Fairburn CG, Harrison PJ. Eating disorders. The Lancet 2003;361:407-416.
LeGrange D. Family issues and eating disorders. In: Wonderlich S, Mitchell J, de Zwaan M, Steiger H, editors.
Eating disorders review, Part I. New York: Academy for Eating Disorders;2005. p. 15-25.
Latzer Y, Lavee Y, Gal S. Marital and parent child relationships in families with daughters who have eating
Disorders. Journal of Family Issues 2009;30:1201-1220.
Dunn J, Davies LC. Sibling relationships and inter-parental conflict. In: Grych J, Fincham FD, editors. Child
development and interparental conflict. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press;2001. p. 273-290.
Grych JH, Fincham FD. Interparental conflict and child adjustment: An overview. In: Grych J, Fincham F, editors.
Interparental conflict and child development: Theory, research, and applications. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge
University Press;2001. p. 1-9.
Cummings EM, Ballard M, El-Sheikh M. Responses of children and adolescents to inter-adult anger as a function
of gender, age, and mode of expression. Merrill-Palmer Quarterly 1991;37:543-560.
Stratton CW, Hammond M. Marital conflict management skills, parenting style, and early-onset conduct problems:
Processes and pathway. J Child Psychol Psychiatry 1999;40:917-927.
Kiecolt-Glaser JK, Newton TL. Marriage and health: his and hers. Psychol Bull 2001;127:472-503.
Davis LL, Gilliss CL, Deshefy-Longhi T, Chestnutt DH, Molloy M. The nature and scope of stressful spousal
caregiving relationships. J Fam Nurs 2011;17:224-40.
Locke HJ, Wallace KM. Short marital adjustment and prediction tests: Their reliability and validity. Marriage and
Family Living 1959;21:251–255.
Domínguez Vásquez P, Olivares S, Santos JL. Influencia familiar sobre la conducta alimentaria y su relación con
la obesidad infantil. Archivos Latinoamericanos de Nutrición 2008;58: 249-255.
Jáuregui-Lobera I, Tomillo-Cid S, Santiago-Fernández MJ, Bolaños-Ríos P. Body shape model, physical activity
and eating behaviour. Nutr Hosp 2011;26:201-207.
Toro J, Cervera M, Pérez P. Body shape, publicity and anorexia nervosa. Soc Psychiatry Psychiatr Epidemiol
;23:132-136.
Toro J, Salamero M, Martínez E. Assessment of sociocultural influences on the aesthetic body shape model in
anorexia nervosa. Acta Psychiatr Scand 1994;89: 147-151.
Toro J, Castro J, Gila A, Pombo C. Assessment of sociocultural influences on the body shape model in
adolescent males with anorexia nervosa. Eur Eat Disord Rev 2005;13:351-359.
Osberg TM, Poland D, Aguayo G, MacDougall S. The Irrational Food Beliefs Scale: development and validation.
Eat Behav. 2008;9:25-40.
Jáuregui-Lobera I, Bolaños-Ríos P. Spanish version of the irrational food beliefs scale. Nutr Hosp 2010;25:852-
Korcoran K, Fischer J, Locke-Wallace marital adjustment test. Measures for Clinical Practices. Vol I. New York:
The Free Press;1994.
Dush CMK, Taylor MG, Kroeger RA. Marital happiness and psychological well-being across the life course. Fam
Relat 2008;57:211-226.
Burgess CE, Cottrell L. Predicting success or failure in marriage. NY: Prentice Hall, Inc.;1939.
Burgess E, Wallin P. Predicting adjustment in marriage from adjustment in engagement. Am J Sociol
;59:324–330.
Chi P, Tsang SKM, Chan KS, Xiang X, Yip PSF, Cheung YT, et al. Marital satisfaction of Chinese under stress:
moderating effects of personal control and social support. Asian J Soc Psychol 2011;14:15-25.
Scorsolini-Comin F, Santos MA. Correlations between subjective well-being, dyadic adjustment and marital
satisfaction in Brazilian married people. Span J Psychol 2012;15:166-176.
Proulx CM, Helms HM, Buehler C: Marital quality and personal well-being: a meta-analysis. J Marriage Fam
;69:576-593.
Stanley SM. Assessing couple and marital relationships: beyond form and toward a deeper knowledge of
function. In: Casper LM, Hoffereth SL, editors. Handbook of measurement issues in family research. Mahwah,
NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum & Associates;2007. p. 85-100.
Beach SRH, Sandeen EE, O’Leary KD. Depression in marriage: A model for etiology and treatment. New York:
Guilford Press;1990.
Qadir F, Khalid A, Haqqani S, Zill-e-Huma, Girmay Medhin G. The association of marital relationship and
perceived social support with mental health of women in Pakistan. BMC Public Health 2013;13:1150.
Toro J, Gila A, Castro J, Pombo C, Guete O. Body image, risk factors for eating disorders and sociocultural
influences in Spanish adolescents. Eating Weight Disord 2005;10:91-97.
Rodgers R, Chabrol H. Parental attitudes, body image disturbance and disordered eating amongst adolescents
and young adults: a review. Eur Eat Disord Rev 2009;17:137-51.
Jiang Y, Terhorst L, Donovan HS, Weimer JM, Choi CW, Schulz R, et al. Locke-Wallace Short Marital-Adjustment
Test: psychometric evaluation in caregivers for persons with primary malignant brain tumor. J Nurs Meas.
;21:502-15.
Davies PT, Forman EM. Children’s patterns of preserving emotional security in the interparental subsystem. Child
Dev 2002;73:1880-1903.
Yahav R, Sharlin SA. The symptom-carrying child as a preserver of the family unit. Child Fam Soc Work
;5:353-364.
Additional Files
Published
Issue
Section
License
All accepted originals remain the property of JONNPR. In the event of publication, the authors exclusively transfer their rights of reproduction, distribution, translation and public communication (by any sound, audiovisual or electronic medium or format) of their work. To do so, the authors shall sign a letter transferring these rights when sending the paper via the online manuscript management system.
The articles published in the journal are freely used under the terms of the Creative Commons BY NC SA license, therefore.
You are free to:
Share — copy and redistribute the material in any medium or format
Adapt — remix, transform, and build upon the material
The licensor cannot revoke these freedoms as long as you follow the license terms.
Under the following terms:
Attribution — You must give appropriate credit, provide a link to the license, and indicate if changes were made. You may do so in any reasonable manner, but not in any way that suggests the licensor endorses you or your use.
NonCommercial — You may not use the material for commercial purposes.
ShareAlike — If you remix, transform, or build upon the material, you must distribute your contributions under the same license as the original.
No additional restrictions — You may not apply legal terms or technological measures that legally restrict others from doing anything the license permits.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License
