The role of maternal bonding in eating disorder prevention: How early experiences shape body image perception
Anna Schmidt
2026-03-24
5 min. read
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The foundational interactions between a child and their primary caregivers during the formative years leave an indelible imprint on psychological development, fundamentally shaping how an individual will later perceive their identity, recognize personal needs, and interpret their physical form. The nature of these early relationships determines whether, in adulthood, a person will identify as someone with excessive body weight, a moderately rounded figure, a slender physique, or an emaciated frame. Parents hold the pivotal responsibility for whether the relationship with one’s body will be characterized by harmonious acceptance and care or by deep-seated aversion and resentment. The strength of these primordial bonds can serve as a wellspring of intrinsic motivation and psychological resilience—or, when disrupted, lead to a persistent sense of misalignment. The congruence between the internally constructed body image and actual physical appearance, along with the degree of self-acceptance in this domain, may either act as a protective factor or, conversely, predispose an individual to the development of pathological eating behaviors, including anorexia nervosa, bulimia nervosa, or binge-eating disorder.
A sense of security
From the blend of sensations, sounds, images, and smells in the first impressions of a newborn baby, three permanent points emerge: the mother's voice, her scent, and the taste of her milk, which give her a little sense of security and stability. The baby initially does not distinguish between the feelings that come from her own body and those of her environment. To understand the child's feelings, we would have to imagine a busy station in Bombay, where in the threshold of these incomprehensible words, new words of general confusion, a new point of temperature control, the first point of airtightness, a full-color ferry, since we can only perceive what is left of the world.
Role of touch
The next step in prevention is our pedicure. The child perceives the world as a whole and, as I wrote earlier, initially cannot determine which feelings, sensations, sounds flow from the outside, which he himself is the author of. The mother's senses of silence, the warm touch felt on the skin help the child determine the limits of his own body. These gestures have one more thing to do, shape the child's sense of self-worth. Caring for the child with sensitivity allows him to accept his body, allows the child to discover his body as a safe source of pleasure.
Help to Understand Emotions
Of course, parents must teach their children to discern these feelings, to name them, and to respond appropriately to their child's needs, to teach them how to deal with them, to understand the childs feelings, requires some attention from their parents that is focused on their needs, and the caregiver will notice the discomfort associated with boredom, pain, anger, and they will have to be able to describe them and help the child deal with it.