Toward a memory perspective on eating psychopathology: An investigation of the types of childhood and adolescence memories that are associated with eating disorder symptoms

Abstract

The cognitive mechanisms through which specific life events affect the development and maintenance of eating disorders (ED) have received limited attention in the scientific literature. The present research aims to address this gap by adopting a memory perspective to explore the type of life events associated with eating psychopathology and how these events are encoded and reconstructed as memories. Two studies (n = 208 and n = 193) were conducted to investigate the relationship between specific memories and eating disorder psychopathology. Study 1 focused on parent-related memories, while Study 2 examined childhood/adolescence memories. Results from both studies revealed that need thwarting and shame in memories were associated with eating disorder symptoms, but only when individuals drew symbolic connections between these memories and food or eating behavior. Moreover, need thwarting and shame in such memories were associated with other eating and body image outcomes, including uncontrolled eating and body esteem. These results also held after controlling for a host of known predictors of eating disorder psychopathology, such as BMI, perfectionism, or thin ideal internalization. Overall, the present findings suggest that the reprocessing of memories symbolically and idiosyncratically linked to food and eating behavior might be a fruitful clinical intervention.