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

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BACKGROUND: Childhood 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. METHODS: Forty-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. RESULTS: The 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. CONCLUSIONS: Females 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.

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