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What causes eating disorders?
Family Patterns:
- Family history of depression
- Family history of alcoholism
- Family history of eating disorders or preoccupation with food and appearance
- Family emphasis on appearance
- Family conflict or trauma
- Parental deprivation
- Emotional, physical or sexual abuse.
Personal Factors:
- Low self esteem
- Low mood or depression
- Very sensitive to other's opinions
- Very self-conscious
- Perfectionist
- Self-critical
- Anxious
- Fears about sexuality
- Feeling unprepared for adulthood
- Poor problem-solving skills
- Relationship problems
- Trauma eg. Death of family member of friend
Social Factors:
- Social emphasis on ultra-thinness
- Social intolerance of fatness
- Social pressures to achieve
- Glamorisation of eating disorders
- For women: lack of power in society
Dieting:
While not everyone who diets will develop an eating disorder, almost every eating disorder begins with a diet. Not allowing yourself to eat certain foods or enough food creates physiological and emotional responses which often lead to the feeling of being out of control and either bingeing or being so scared to start eating because you think you won't be able to stop.
References:
American Psychiatric Association. (1994). Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (4th Ed.) United States of America: American Psychiatric Association.
Bulik, C, (1994). Eating Disorders: Detection & Treatment. New Zealand. Dunmore Press Limited.