Strategies for Resisting Eating Disorders Over the Life Course—A Mother-Daughter Case Analysis

Abstract

This mother-daughter instrumental case study was selected from a data set of in-depth mother-daughter interviews conducted among Jewish American women for the insights it reveals. Thematic analysis was used to identify major family themes and strategies. Both mother and daughter reported on the historical and cultural setting, the efficacy of methods of treatment, the cross-generational transmission of eating disorders (ED), disordered eating behaviors and body dissatisfaction, genetics, family environment and non-shared personal experiences, and the strategies they developed to resist eating disorders and body dissatisfaction in their parenting of their own daughters. The life stories described by both mother (aged 67) and the daughter (aged 41) span over four generations. Six themes were identified in the mother's narrative and four in the daughter's, highlighting strategies for resisting ED and body dissatisfaction.

KEYWORDS:

• anorexia
• case studies
• DES
• eating disorders
• life history
• mothering
• women's health

Acknowledgments

Work on this study was supported by a Senior Scholar Grant to the author from the Hadassah-Brandeis Institute, Brandeis, MA. A grant from the Israel Ministry of Science, Culture and Sport supported the earlier development work that was the basis of this study. The author wishes to thank Dr. Sheryl Mendlinger, Rachel Hillel and Erika Levin for their help during data collection and Dr. Ephrat Huss and Dr. Sima Salcberg for their helpful advice on an earlier version of this article.

Notes

Coincidently, Hilde Bruch, M. D. was born March 11, 1904 in Duelken, Germany—a small town that no longer exists and came to the US as a refuge from the rising Nazi regime (Bruch, 1996). She was born in the same year as Nora's mother, Beatrice and engaged, as she did in child psychiatry.

Diethylstilbestrol (or ‘DES’) is a synthetic estrogen medication that started to be used in 1938. It was given to millions of pregnant women until about 1971 (even though strong studies in the 1950's showed there were no real benefits of using the drug). The side affects of this drug did not become evident until the 1970's, when a few young women whose mothers took the drug during their pregnancy started to develop vaginal cancer. Studies over 40 years have indicated that DES may affect the sons and daughters of women who took DES by increasing their risk of breast cancer, causing infertility, producing abnormalities of their reproductive organs and urinary system.