The Warning Signs of Future Eating Disorders in Your Children

A Taste of Things to Come

Perfectionism and rigidity have long been linked to anorexia and bulimia. But researchers now have evidence that if manifest in childhood, perfectionism and other obsessive-compulsive personality traits are strong predictors of developing eating disorders.

Those with obsessive-compulsive (OC) traits answered positively to questions like, Did you spend a long time doing or redoing your hair to make sure it was straight without bumps? To what extent were you the sort of person who liked to make written notes/plans or have intricate details about the time ahead? Questions tackled inflexibility, rigidity, the need for rules, the presence of excessive doubt and cautiousness, and the drive for order and symmetry.

The more OC traits a woman showed as a child, the more likely she was to develop an eating disorder as a teen or adult. Each additional OC childhood trait increased the odds of developing anorexia or bulimia nearly seven-fold.

"Childhood obsessive-compulsive personality traits are important risk factors for the development of eating disorders, particularly anorexia nervosa," the researchers report in the American Journal of Psychiatry.

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