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Eating Disorders

How does parental concern about their child's eating and/or weight impact parental availability for treatment?"

(PS6-B33) How Does Parental Concern About Their Child's Eating And/or Weight Impact Parental Availability for Treatment?"

Friday, November 17, 2023
4:00 PM – 5:00 PM PST
Location: Regency Ballroom, Level 7
Strong parental support is a crucial component for positive treatment outcomes among adolescents with binge-spectrum eating disorders (BSEDs) and/or weight concerns. Families where support is limited to one caregiver face increased challenges (e.g., less time, fewer resources) in supporting their child during treatment. However, little research has explored how the availability of parental support is related to the type of symptoms observed by parents in their children, despite parental availability significantly impacting treatment approaches and success. Parental drive to seek out and participate in treatment is affected by concerns about their child, and severe concerns may increase parental help seeking and availability. Understanding nuances in how the type of concern (I.e., BSED or weight concern) is related to parent support would allow targeted efforts to increase parental availability to identify groups likely to have lower support levels. BSED symptoms, such as bingeing or p</span>urging, may be viewed as more severe by parents and thus linked to higher support levels than weight only concerns. Therefore, it is essential to determine how BSED or weight concerns are related to levels of parental support in order to target family involvement between types of treatment approach. We examined whether types of parent concern were associated with parental availability within a sample of 196 parents seeking no-cost ED and/or weight loss treatment for their child. Parent concern was a binary variable based on the presence of reported BSED concerns or the lack of BSED concerns (i.e., weight concerns only). Parental availability was categorized as a binary yes/no variable based on the reported presence of another parental figure willing and able to participate in treatment. Only 50.5% (n=99) of parents reported their child had another parental figure willing and able to participate in treatment. Additionally, concern over the presence of BSED symptoms (e.g., bingeing or purging) was expressed by 42.3% (n=83) parents. We conducted a chi-squared analysis to determine if parental availability to participate in treatment differed by the type of concern reported. The proportion of parental availability in treatment differed significantly by the type of concern expressed X2 (1, N=196) = 4.19, p </span>= .041. In parents with BSED concerns, 59.0% (n=49) reported another parental figure available to participate in treatment. However, 44.4% (n=50) of parents with weight only concerns reported another parental figure available to participate in treatment. This difference in parental support could suggest that parents with BSED concerns view these issues as more serious than parents with weight concerns only, and therefore are more inclined to participate in treatment. Parents may view weight concerns as their child’s individual responsibility and thus external parental support as unnecessary. Future research should explore contributing reasons for differences in parental availability and investigate ways in which parental support in both treatments can be maximized. Approaches such as increasing parental education on external factors affecting weight issues and importance of family support may increase willingness to participate in treatment.