A recent study found that higher parental and grandparental education and higher grades increases a person's risk for an eating disorder. This makes a whole lot of sense to me. And I'm not talking about how parents with higher levels of education might push their kids harder, etc. Or even how more educated parents have more money and therefore their kids experience more pressure to be thin. This could be true- I don't know. But I think the relationship is much more subtle than that.

One of the characteristics of an eating disorder is a drive for thinness. Considering that, through the ED, I defined "thinness" as "success" and/or "perfection," the drive for thinness in me (and in others I've spoken with) seems to be an offshoot of perfectionism. Indeed, even in non-ED university students, researchers found a relationship between stress, perfectionism, and drive for thinness.

Besides the eating disorder, my other main perfectionistic focus has been school. I skipped half of my brother's high school graduation party to study for an 8th grade history test. I worked until all hours of the night in high school, and usually through dawn in college. Driven by fear and anxiety, and fueled by pots of coffee, I stayed at the top of my class.

From the outside, I was a success. I sure looked the part. My parents were proud- why wouldn't they be? Over-achievement wasn't going to worry my parents, especially not after my brother! And this drive, this ineffable need to do more, do it better, was hauntingly familiar to both my parents, but especially my mother. It wasn't abnormal or pathological, right? It was familiar.

This post is not intended as any sort of mother-bashing (though several of my therapists have had a field day with what I am about to share), but my mom was pretty darn obsessive and perfectionistic about school and, instead of food/weight, her other obsession was cleaning. She skipped out on dates with my dad because she had to study. My dad, who had tickets to a concert/play/whatever, didn't want to waste the tickets, so he took my mom's mom instead.* And, also just like me, my mom excelled at school. She placed top in the state in her subject exams upon college graduation.

Both my parents graduated from college- my dad did so somewhat grudgingly, as school was never his "thing," but graduate he did. I know my mom's dad graduated from college, but I'm not sure about my dad's dad. I know neither of my grandmothers went to college, but everyone finished high school.

What I see in my family is not so much a legacy of high parental expectations, but a legacy of perfectionism and drive to succeed. Did my parents have high expectations? Maybe, but my freakishly higher expectations of myself were what drove me. So I fundamentally disagree with the authors' conclusions that:

"Thus, higher parental and grandparental education and higher school grades may increase risk of hospitalization for eating disorders in female offspring, possibly because of high internal and external demands."

Internal demands, yes. This is how the perfectionism manifests itself in myself, my mother, and many of my maternal relatives (of whom I know the most about). My dad is also a perfectionist, though in a very different way than my mother and I. So the link between higher grades and higher parental/grandparental education does make sense, but not in the way the authors might have assumed.

Anxiety can drive success. People have told me they wish their kids could have my GPA and "work ethic" and I have to tell them no, you really don't wish that. I love learning and enjoyed many of the aspects of school, but my high school and undergrad years were pretty hellish. I was lucky, in a sense, that the symptoms of my mental illness helped me succeed, but it also makes it harder for lots of people (myself included) to understand that these personality traits--the drivenness, the perfectionism--have downsides, too.

Note: I realized as I was blogging that the study seemed awfully familiar, and I remembered that Laura also posted about the study and its conclusions here.

*My grandmother, at that time, looked rather young and not unlike Doris Day, so they probably pulled off the whole "couple" routine. It's the epitome of putting the "fun" in "dysfunctional." She also appeared in the newspaper around this time to share the recipe for her "legendary" ham loaf. I have the picture somewhere- I should post it. It's a hoot.