A clinical study of the intergenerational transmission of eating disorders from mothers to daughters.

Clinicians and researchers have long recognized the existence of eating disorders in very young children, including infants whose mothers have eating disorders. This paper combines reviews of the literature relevant to the study of eating disorders from the perspectives of both research and psychoanalytic theory in order to explore the psychodynamics of the intergenerational transmission of eating-disordered pathology from mother to child. A developmental pathway as well as several mechanisms that illuminate the pathogenesis of the intergenerational transmission of eating disorders are proposed and described.

Stock-still behavior: a potential developmental marker.

During the course of a pilot study of toddlers' behavior and play, the experimenters observed a previously undocumented behavior. This behavior now labeled "stock-still" behavior, was noted at the age of 17.5 months and consisted of the toddlers' standing motionless at or near the doorway of a nursery when previously they had marched, seemingly intrepid, into the room on their own.