childhood traumas and eating disorders

In a recent study, one third of young patients with eating disorders were found to have endured childhood traumas.

The purpose of the study was to assess the presence of various types of traumas...

in 182 patients from a pediatric treatment center.

Based on their medical records, 35% of the sample reported one or more traumatic events during their lifetime. However, there was a great variation between different diagnoses. E.g., 64% of patient with Bulimia Nervosa reported such traumas. This was also the case of 50% of the few males in the sample.

Bullying was the most prevalent type of trauma (10%), followed by significant death/loss (9%), and sexual abuse (8%).

Interestingly, adolescents with any trauma exposure had milder symptoms (as measured by BMI, Percent of Expected Body Weight) than other--which suggests the existence of other non-life-event-related vulnerability factors.

Source: Hicks-White et alia (2018)​