Are Parents to Blame for their
Child's Eating Disorder?
By Abigail Natenshon

So many parents blame themselves for their child's eating disorder: for creating it or triggering its onset, for not recognizing it in time, for failing to facilitate the child's recovery efforts. I believe there are several important issues to consider;

  - The first being that parents need not assume guilt and responsibility for the onset of a disease that is proven to be genetically/biologically founded……short of contributing sperm and egg in conceiving the child, of course.
  - Exonerating parents from guilt for disease onset, however, does not mean to imply that parents can and should remain uninvolved and/or uneducated about their child's illness and treatment experience, and about what they can do to promote healing. ED and their recovery take place in families. There is no place and no reason for families to hide.

Perhaps even more pivotal to treatment outcomes than what the parent thinks and feels is the treating professional's belief system about parental blame. It is the professional's belief that parental input would be toxic to the recovery process or violate the patient's privacy that leads to parental exclusion from treatment even in cases where inclusion is appropriate and could enhance recovery.

Professionals need to assess themselves and their attitudes and become highly sensitized to how those attitudes may impact the quality of treatment offered. Patients and parents need to assess the professionals' perspective and seek help only from clinicians who will freely become advocates for parents in their efforts to become advocates for their child, and for the child's eating disorder recovery.