Eating disturbance, emotional separation, and body image

The present study explored the interrelationship of eating disturbance, emotional separation from mother and father, body satisfaction, and body boundary definiteness. Subjects for the study were undergraduate women recruited from an introductory psychology subject pool on the basis of self-reports of eating behavior. The results indicate that eating disturbance is associated with less emotional separation from parents, greater body dissatisfaction, and less definite body boundaries.