Eating disorder? Genes to blame too
By Judith Tan - Mar 28, 2007
The Straits Times
The common perception of anorexia and bulimia sufferers is that they have brought the problem upon themselves by trying to get a fashionably slender figure.
But the causes of eating disorders among young girls and women are far more complex.
Researchers have found that genes seem to play an important role in determining who is vulnerable. It is much like the link between smoking and lung cancer, said Dr Blake Woodside, a psychiatrist at the University of Toronto.
'Not all smokers develop lung cancer. There is a genetic risk factor for smoking-linked cancer. Similarly, not all women exposed to the ideal of being fashionably thin develop eating disorders,' he said.
True, society's obsession with attaining what it perceives to be an ideal body is a contributing factor, which is why 'we get overly concerned with our weight and diet'.
'Yet less than 0.5 per cent of all women develop anorexia nervosa. This points to the fact that that societal pressure is not the lone cause,' he said.
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