Fear of aging: A precipitating factor in late onset anorexia nervosa

✍ Scribed by Gupta, Madhulika A.

• Publisher: Wiley (John Wiley & Sons)
• Year: 1990
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 300 KB
• Volume: 9
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0276-3478
• DOI: 10.1002/1098-108x(199003)9:2<221::aid-eat2260090213>3.0.co;2-k

✦ Synopsis

Two women with first onset of anorexia nervosa at ages 37 and 4 I years presented with certain common clinical features. Both had presented a facade of social adjustment during their adult life, while maintaining a very dependent and enmeshed relation with their parents. The development of some visible physical stigmata of aging, such as wrinkling and sagging skin, in association with a decline in their parents' health with aging caused their parents to encourage the patients to assume a more independent existence, as they realized that the patients would not remain "their little girls" forever. The patients, who had essentially postponed the adolescent task of separation-individuation for over 20 years, had a great deal of difficulty coping and developed intractable anorexia nervosa. They eventually transferred their dependency upon their spouse andlor grown-up children. Consideration of this factor could be very important in the management of some older eating-disordered patients.