Quality of Family Relationships as Protective Factors of Eating Disorders: An Investigation Amongst Italian Teenagers

The study here presented aims to investigate the links between quality of family relationships and some prodromes in eating disorders. A sample of 1083 subjects took part in the study by filling PBI, FACES and EDI questionnaires. In order to clarify the role played by family relationships in the onset of EDs, two subgroups (high risk - low risk) were individuated by using the EDI cut-offs as discriminator factors and tested separately from the main sample. The results revealed some significant relations between the analysed dimensions. It was shown that by increasing the values from the parents’ caring style scale and the real family’s cohesiveness scale the probability for subjects to fall into the high risk group decreases. Also, by increasing the family adaptability’s values, an increase of the probability for subjects to fall into the high risk group occurs. These results support the implementation of preventive and therapeutic plans to promote health and quality of life of adolescence.