Relationships with parents and impaired eating behaviours in daughters of alcoholic parents

Abstract

 The aim of the present work was to provide answers to the following research problems:

• Are there any differences with regard to impaired eating behaviours between girls with alcoholic and nonalcoholic parents ? What are they?
• Are there any differences between eating behaviours and relationships in families of girls who have alcoholic and non-alcoholic parents? What are they?

Examined group and methods: The examination included 216 girls, aged from 16 to 19 years, who were high school students. Thirty of them used a diet and laxatives, whereas fifty eight used only a diet. Twenty three girls had alcoholic parents.

The following tools were used while carrying out the research: sociodemograhic Questionnaire, Disturbed Family Relationships Questionnaire (Kwestionariusz do Badania Zaburzeń Relacji w Rodzinie – KBZRR) and Impaired Eating Habits Questionnaire (Kwestionariusz do Badania Zaburzonych Postaw Wobec Odżywiania KZPWO), both created by Beata Pawłowska.

On the basis of the statistical analysis the following conclusions were drawn:

1. Girls with parents addicted to alcohol were much more convinced that their mothers would feel lonely without them and that they needed their care, consolation, advice and protection against their father in comparison with their peers who were raised in non-alcoholic families. Such girls also perceived their mothers as unhappy in their marriage, helpless and incapable of coping with everyday problems.
2. The girls who were brought up in families with an alcohol problem, don't want to follow in their mothers footsteps as women.
3. The girls raised by alcoholic parents present a significantly higher level of depression, lack of purpose and meaning in life, sense of emptiness, hopelessness, helplessness, worthlessness, self-hatred, lack of strength to overcome difficulties and loneliness. They also find it harder to express their emotions.
4. In the examined group of girls, significant dependencies occurred between experienced family abuse, violence, lack of acceptance, excessive penalties and requirements, parental rejection and the use of laxatives, provoking vomiting, alcohol abuse, self-injuring, feeling of depression, hopelessness, helplessness, lack of meaning of life, self-hatred.
5. In the examined group, experiencing parental rejection correlates with the use of restrictive diets, a strict control of caloric value of food and a negative body image.
6. The need to meet the parents` expectations and requirements is stronger in the daughters of alcoholics ; they are more afraid of growing up, gaining independence, and they are more convinced that their mother would be lonely without them and it is they who will have to look after her and protect her against the father as well as to give her advice and solve everyday problems.
7. The more often the daughters of alcoholic parents experience violence and abuse in the family and parental rejection and the more often they create a coalition with the mother against the oppressive alcoholic father, the more frequently they develop improper eating behaviours learning them from the Internet.