Psychological adjustment in the children of mothers with a history of eating disorders

In order to test the impact of mothers' eating disorders (EDs) on their children's psychological adjustment, we recruited mothers belonging to three different populations: women with eating disorders, women with depression, and normal controls. The parents responded to self-report inventories relating to psychological adjustment of the parent and child. The study found that the psychological adjustment of the children of mothers with a history of ED was not different from that of the children of mothers in the normal control group, although mothers described significant pregnancy and birth complications, parenting stress, and symptoms of clinical depression. The children of mothers with a history of depression had significantly greater psychological problems in comparison with those of the children of mothers in the other two groups. The results are interpreted in the context of the protective factors that may have buffered the effects of maternal psychopathology in children of mothers with a history of ED.