Inherited Hunger: Eating Disorders, Legacy Burdens, and Internal Family Systems Therapy
Behind every eating disorder is a system of parts working tirelessly to protect against pain. Pain that may not have started in this lifetime.
Through the lens of Internal Family Systems (IFS), we begin to see these patterns not as flaws but as inherited legacies. Legacy burdens are the emotional blueprints we absorb from family, culture, and collective trauma. They extend through generations, shaping how our parts relate to food, control, body image, and safety. Here we explore how eating disorders often carry more than just personal distress, they carry ancestral echoes, cultural mandates, and survival strategies some long outgrown. With compassion, curiosity, and clinical insight, we’ll trace how healing begins when we honour our parts and hand back what was never ours to carry.
In the context of eating disorders, legacy burdens might emerge from ancestral experiences of famine, war, or cultural ideals around thinness and control. Epigenetic studies have shown that trauma can alter stress responses in offspring, influencing how hunger, fullness, and body image are experienced long before parts learn to restrict, binge, or numb. When someone reaches for control through food, IFS invites us to wonder: whose voice is echoing here? Was this belief born today, or is it the resonance of a rule passed down?
“Thinness keeps you loved” or “Needing is dangerous”
IFS states, each disordered eating behaviour belongs to a part with a story and a protective mission. Manager parts might micromanage meals, tracking every gram as a way to ward off shame or criticism. Firefighters may reach for food or engage in compulsive movement in an urgent attempt to soothe unbearable physical sensations. Exiles often young, carry the core memories: bullying in adolescence, carer comments that made love feel conditional on appearance, or moments when nourishment was withheld as punishment. Healing doesn’t mean silencing these parts. It means listening. With Self calm, connected, and compassionate. Here we learn to witness these roles not as pathology but as loyalty.
Cultural narratives around weight, gender, and control often amplify these inherited burdens, embedding shame in our systems before we even know what hunger is. Girls are often praised for disappearing, while boys are conditioned to dominate or restrict emotion through muscle. Gender diverse people face even deeper alienation, navigating ideals that were never designed with their bodies or identities in mind. These narratives are not just societal but personal. They shape family rituals, mealtime conversations, and our internal self-talk. Naming them as cultural burdens allows us to move from self-blame to system awareness, empowering Self to guide our parts with clarity rather than compliance.
When we begin to experience Self-energy, the system softens, allowing space for the ritual of return. Each part is invited forward not to be fixed, but to be heard. The calorie-counter, the midnight snacker, the one who feels safest on an empty stomach. They are offered space to tell their origin stories. Often what surfaces are memories from generations past: war-time rationing, a parent’s pride in self-denial, or the sting of praise that only came with weight loss. When these burdens are named, they lose their power. Naming isn't about diagnosis or blame. It’s about remembering that this pain has context and this fear had a reason. That the critic wasn't born cruel, but shaped by generations who thought survival required control.
As burdens are released, the system reorganises. Parts often discover they were never at odds with healing they simply lacked safer strategies. A Manager once consumed with fear can become a reliable planner. A Firefighter who ran to the pantry can now paint, sing, or reach for connection instead. These aren’t just symbolic changes; they are neurobiological ones. Studies on memory reconsolidation show that when emotional experiences are reprocessed in a safe, attuned space, the original memory trace can be updated. EMDR works on this principle and so does IFS. And when we combine them, weaving bilateral stimulation with part-led witnessing the changes are not surface-level but deep, embodied, and lasting. When these acts are shared with a trusted others, a therapist, a loved one, a journal that won’t judge it deepens the learning. Safety multiplies in relationship. And so does healing.
We can hand back the empty plate and we are not discarding our history, but releasing its weight. We keep the wisdom our ancestors carved through hardship, but we no longer let fear write the menu. In its place, we create room for nourishment, rest, and worthiness that does not shrink to fit someone elses idea of value.
If you’re based in Melbourne and feel ready to explore your own system with warmth and curiosity, Let’s Work On That offers Internal Family Systems therapy that gently supports eating disorder recovery.
If any part of you feels unsafe or overwhelmed right now, please reach out to the Butterfly Foundation on 1800 334 673 or contact your local emergency services 000.
You are not alone.
And no part of you is too much.
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