“I thought if my parents got involved, then they’d make me get better”: emerging adults’ experiences of support from family and friends during anorexia nervosa

J Eat Disord. 2025 May 12;13(1):80. doi: 10.1186/s40337-025-01260-8.

ABSTRACT

BACKGROUND: Around half of all eating disorder cases start during emerging adulthood (i.e., 18-25 years of age). This is an important time of change in interpersonal relationships, marked by individuation from the family of origin. Interpersonal relationships have long featured in theories of eating disorder maintenance and recovery. Increased understanding of the interplay between eating disorders and changes in the interpersonal domain may be key to improving the efficacy of existing treatments and developing novel interventions for this population group.

OBJECTIVE: This study aimed to explore experiences of support from family and friends amongst emerging adults with anorexia nervosa.

METHODS: A convenience sample of emerging adults who had received specialist treatment for anorexia nervosa in the United Kingdom (N = 10) was recruited via advertisements on social media. Semi-structured interviews were conducted focusing on experiences of support from family and friends during their eating disorder. Data were analysed using Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis.

RESULTS: Five key themes in participants’ experiences were identified: (i) feeling isolated and lacking close friends; (ii) resisting involvement of family due to perceiving them as part of the problem; (iii) feeling family and friends’ feelings; (iv) desiring flexible boundaries, and (v) feeling ambivalent towards family and friends’ lived experience.

CONCLUSIONS: Findings suggest a complex entanglement of development of and recovery from AN with the process of individuating from parents during emerging adulthood. Clinicians may find benefit in helping emerging adults to develop their independence and supporting parents to adopt helpful emotional and behavioural postures that tackle the AN maintenance cycle, for example developing parental emotion regulation skills and supporting parents to facilitate age-appropriate levels of independence and responsibility.

PMID:40355976 | DOI:10.1186/s40337-025-01260-8