• Posted August 18, 2025

A Happy Childhood Can Protect Against Eating Disorders

Supportive parents. Regular household routines. Comforting beliefs. Strong connections to the community.

All these positive childhood influences can lower a college student’s risk of developing an eating disorder, even in the face of some negative experiences, a new study says.

Previous studies have linked child abuse and neglect to greater risk of eating disorders like binge eating, bulimia and anorexia, researchers said.

But these new findings indicate the opposite is also true — a happy, secure childhood can shield a kid against future eating disorders.

“We found that positive, or benevolent childhood experiences, had a protective effect against disordered eating,” senior researcher Craig Johnston, chair of health and human performance at the University of Houston, said in a news release.

“Even in the instance where students had a high amount of adverse childhood experiences, positive childhood experiences mitigated their impact in regard to unhealthy eating behaviors,” Johnston added.

Eating disorders affect nearly 80% of college students, as these young adults start to develop their own independent eating habits, researchers said in background notes.

“Previous studies have examined how adverse and positive childhood experiences are related to disordered eating among college students, but very few have explored how these experiences interact and may synergistically affect disordered eating,” Johnston said.

For the new study, researchers surveyed more than 1,600 University of Houston students.

Results showed that positive and negative childhood influences did indeed influence the students’ risk for eating disorders.

Those students at greatest risk reported adverse childhood experiences, fewer positive experiences, and current obsessing about their weight and shape. They had a 63% increased risk for eating disorders.

“The most dramatic protective effect was observed when individuals had both low adverse childhood experiences and high positive childhood experiences, reducing disordered eating by 20% to 41%,” Johnston said.

These results show how dramatically a child’s home life can affect their future healthy behaviors, lead researcher Cynthia Yoon, an assistant professor at Pusan National University in South Korea, said in a news release.

“Given that childhood experiences, both good and bad, have a strong and lasting impact in eating behaviors, it is important to support families, caregivers, neighbors and teachers in creating a warm, caring and non-hostile environment,” Yoon said. “This, in turn, may help reduce the chances of students developing disordered eating behaviors during college.” 

Colleges also might want to start screening students for health risks based on their childhood home life, and offer lessons on healthy coping strategies and building resilience, Johnston said.

“College students who exhibit disordered eating behaviors should be screened for childhood experiences as part of the assessment to determine whether food and eating are used as coping mechanisms or to fulfill unmet childhood emotional needs,” he said.

“Those who screen positive may help clinicians tailor treatment plans to address underlying trauma or lack of warmth, and promote developing resilience, potentially preventing the use of disordered eating behaviors as a coping mechanism,” Johnston added.

The new study appears in the journal Adversity and Resilience Science.

More information

The American Psychiatric Association has more on eating disorders.

SOURCE: University of Houston, news release, Aug. 13, 2025