Eating Pathology and Perceptions of the Parent-Child Relationship across Adolescence: Exploring Longitudinal Associations within a Monozygotic Twin Differences Design
Creators: name: Wallace, Laurel
Publisher: name: Graduate Studies
Year: 2015
Subjects: subject: Psychology--Clinical
subject: eating pathology
subject: parent-child relationship
subject: Adolescence

description: The current study explored associations between eating pathology and the parent-child relationship (i.e., parent-child regard and involvement) across adolescence. Secondary data analyses were conducted of a population-based sample of 446 monozygotic (MZ) twins (i.e., 223 twin pairs), their mothers, and their fathers. The study used a MZ twin differences design that facilitated examination of the parent-child relationship as a nonshared environmental factor. Importantly, the MZ twin differences design has been labelled as the most powerful and direct approach for identifying nonshared environmental influences on development. Data from assessments when the twins were approximately age 11, 14, and 17 years were included. Part 1 of the study used cross-lagged models to consider longitudinal, bidirectional associations among variables, including the temporal order of variables associated across time. Specifically, analyses examined whether twin differences in mother-child and father-child relationship problems emerged as a risk factor for, or outcome of, twin differences in eating pathology; in other words, whether the twin who reported greater parent-child relationship problems later reported greater eating pathology, as compared to her co-twin, and/or vice versa. Parts 2-5 further clarified and elaborated on findings and addressed several methodological limitations of past research, including controlling for the influence of body mass index on eating pathology, examining whether findings generalized to other psychopathology, and considering multiple informants’ ratings of the parent-child relationship. Overall, longitudinal associations of twin differences in eating pathology and twin differences in the parent-child relationship were generally neither strong nor robust. However, where longitudinal associations emerged, overall patterns indicated reciprocal associations between symptoms of eating pathology and parent-child relationship variables that shifted across developmental periods. Specifically, whereas twin differences in parent-child relationship variables more commonly predicted later twin differences in eating pathology across early adolescence, twin differences in eating pathology more commonly predicted later twin differences in parent-child relationship variables across later adolescence. In particular, the twin who reported greater eating pathology later reported more negative perceptions of the father-child relationship, as compared to her co-twin. These associations between eating pathology and parent-child relationship variables were observed independent of any confounding effects of genetics or the shared environment. Findings raise questions for future research regarding parental – in particular, paternal – responses to adolescent eating pathology and suggest the potential importance of efforts to support the parent-child relationship within the context of adolescent eating pathology.