Prevention and Treatment
home eating disorder Information prevention & treatment risk factors for eating disorders
risk factors for eating disorders

The following factors can play a role in the development and/or continuance of eating disordered behaviors: [for a list of symptoms of not-so-common eating disorders and related illnesses/behaviors, please click here.]

1.  Genetics & biology: Specific genetic and/or biological traits can make one more susceptible to the development of an eating disorder.

2.  Temperament: Perfectionists and dichotomous thinkers (no gray areas: good/bad; fat/thin; safe/dangerous), those who display a tendency towards depression and anxiety, as well as those with obsessive-compulsive disorder.

3.  Extreme sensitivity and vulnerability: Those at risk often care for others before taking care of themselves. They can take an offhand, benign comment that most others would ignore or be unaffected by and allow it to warp their sense of self.

4. Familial: Parents do NOT cause eating disorders, but we can contribute to their development or continuance due to misinformation or misguided attempts to "help" our children with weight or body issues. Parental contributing factors may include (but are not limited to) the following:

  • Specific personality styles: Driven, perfectionistic, achievement oriented, critical (especially of our child's body/weight)
  • Dieting behaviors (includes all diets from Atkins to Weight Watchers) or ongoing weight or fitness focus (critical of our own bodies)
  • History of depression
  • Chaotic lifestyle or substance abuse
  • Suffer with our own (diagnosed or undiagnosed) eating disorder or disordered eating behaviors
5.  Dieting: Increases obsessional thoughts of food and leads to binge eating. [For the validated research basis of this claim, please read: Health at Every Size by Linda Bacon, PhD]

6.  Cultural: "Through the media, in our culture, women are often portrayed as expensive toys, the ultimate recreation. The beauty standards are so narrow that many women seem to look alike: hollow-cheeked, passive, focused on their appearance, vulnerable and extremely thin. They appear as decorative or sexual objects to be admired, used or discarded. It's a stereotype that starts 9-year-olds dieting and teaches adolescent girls that their developing bodies will never be good enough. It compels young adults to live as if they are being constantly watched, desired and judged, especially when the males they know openly denigrate large women and admire thin women."[Children & Teens Afraid to Eat by Frances Berg]