Are eating disorders hereditary?

Food usually brings people together. It’s how we celebrate and connect. And yet I’ve spent decades of my life avoiding and restricting it according to rigid rules of my own design. I find food terrifying and had long been afraid of passing that fear along to a future daughter.

When my initial panic finally subsided, I found my anxieties rested on my assumption that eating disorders are inherited, passed down genetically, and learned, through behavior and environment.

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I started digging into the research on eating disorders and found that anorexia does run in families. One study found that women who have family members with anorexia are 11 times as likely to develop the disease as those without affected family. Anorexia, like most mental illnesses, is passed down via genetics and a person’s environment. My assumptions were partly correct. Many describe the connection through a particular metaphor: Genetics loads the gun, but environment pulls the trigger. So while there is a hereditary element, it doesn’t mean a person’s fate is sealed at birth.

This is an excerpt. Read the full article here