Children often use food and eating as a way to assert independence. In a world where every choice is made for you by your parents, developing fussy eating patterns is a way for children to be in control of themselves. Many fussy children have developed that habit when very young and then they just continue that behaviour as they grow up. So it is entirely possible that a child of controlling parents will develop a disordered pattern of eating in an attempt to gain some control over their own body.

HOWEVER, disordered eating and an eating disorder are two very different things. Disordered eating doesn't impact on the person's daily life or their mental health. They may skip meals here and there or refuse to eat certain foods or forget to eat for long periods and then make up for it by eating a lot in a short period (my husband does this, he usually only eats at night, just because he can't really be bothered during the work day). An eating disorder is a mental illness. It is not just the way the person does or does not eat food. It is all encompassing, it is present in their thoughts all day, causes stress and emotional pain as they struggle with irrational thoughts and damaging behaviours that they wish they didn't have to deal with. It is a disease of the mind just like depression, OCD, anxiety etc. It is not something that one chooses. You may choose to eat selectively or begin a starvation diet but you don't choose to be anorexic.

That said, eating disorders commonly find their beginning when the sufferer tries to control something in their life, like their weight. So your experience with feeling a lack of control over your own life may have caused you to try to control your food intake. And that may have spiralled in to the mental illness of anorexia. Eating disorders are not experienced by every person who "diets" and they are not caused by parents or any person. Not even the sufferer. You wouldn't say it's Joe Blow's fault that he is depressed because he broke up with his girlfriend. You would know that there is more to the situation and it is much more serious. Same thing with ED.

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