An eating disorder is a serious psychological condition that can dramatically impact the life of the sufferer as well as the lives of everyone around them. If someone in your life is suffering from one, or if you are yourself, it can help to know where such conditions can come from and a little bit about them. Here then is some information that might help you better understand the condition.

Eating disorders such as anorexia nervosa (literally meaning ‘nervous loss of appetite’) and bulimia nervosa (similarly meaning ‘nervous binging’) are serious conditions that can dramatically affect (and in the case of anorexia, risk) the lives of sufferers. They are particularly prevalent among females in Western cultures, with the the male to female ratio currently being 1:10 for anorexia. Interestingly however male cases of eating disorders are actually becoming more frequent, particularly among certain professions such as models, dancers and jockeys. Studies also suggest that homosexual men may be at more risk than heterosexuals.

One study suggests that roughly 0.7% of Western girls under 16 meet the diagnostic criteria for anorexia nervosa. For this reason theories have been developed to try and understand the causes of eating disorders, explain why they are so prevalent today in the Western world and suggest what conditions make them more likely. This article will attempt to assess how effective said theories are in this capacity, specifically in describing why eating disorders remain a problem for Western women, looking in detail at a few key example theories.

Biological explanations of eating disorders would suggest that they exist regardless of social context. Twin studies for example have demonstrated that genetics play at least a small role in their development and it has been suggested that around 50% of the risk is inherited for anorexia and around 25% for bulimia. These studies compare the prevalence of disorders among monozygotic and dizygotic twins which enable researchers to mostly rule out the effects of their social environment. However this methodology is not flawless in that twins are not representative of the general population and have been shown to be generally more likely to develop psychological disorders. Additionally, simply looking different can greatly affect your life experiences, which would mean dizygotic twins experience greater differences in their social environments than do identical twins. This is particularly relevant in a disorder tied so closely to appearance. Another biological explanation is that anorexia can be caused by legionsin the hypothalamus, which have been shown to cause abnormalities in eating, drinking and sexual behaviour. In one study 54 published cases of eating disorders and brain damage were analysed and several correlations were found between eating disorders and damage to the hypothamalus. This explanation however does not explain cases of eating disorders in biologically ‘healthy’ patients.

Mack LeMouse

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