Childhood maltreatment in young females with an eating disorder: associations with self-esteem, body experience, and symptom severity.

backgroundChildhood maltreatment impacts expressions of mental disbalance, including disturbed eating behavior. Research into relationships between childhood abuse and neglect and other transdiagnostic factors, such as self-esteem and body experiences in eating disorders (EDs) is limited. This study investigates how childhood maltreatment relates to these other transdiagnostic factors and clinical measures in EDs.

methodsForty-nine women with an eating disorder (ED) and a control group of 50 women without an ED, aged 15-25 years, participated in an observational study with cross-sectional questionnaires and longitudinal measurements with the Experience Sampling Method (ESM). With ESM, real life, momentary self-esteem, body experience and ED behavior were longitudinally measured 10 times per day over 10 days. The ESM data were modelled at the momentary level using linear mixed-effects regression with random intercepts, to examine the associations between the person-level predictors (childhood maltreatment) and momentary self-esteem, body experience and ED behavior.

resultsThe ED group reported more total childhood adversities, abuse, and neglect than the control group did. Childhood maltreatment was not associated with real life, momentary self-esteem, body experience and ED behavior, nor with ED severity. In controls, childhood maltreatment, specifically neglect, was associated with lower momentary self-esteem but not with momentary body experience. Body experience (cross-sectionally measured) was associated with childhood maltreatment in both the ED and control group.

conclusionsFemales with EDs reported more childhood maltreatment than controls did, but associations with body experience appeared more similar across groups. Notably, associations between childhood maltreatment and self-esteem were only found in controls. The findings highlight the relevance of self-esteem and body experience in females with childhood maltreatment, irrespective of psychopathology, and the need for further identification of transdiagnostic factors associated with childhood maltreatment in individuals with ED.