It turns out that for some women it is just in their genes. At least according to the research done by one group of British researchers who are claiming that anorexia nervosa is actually genetic. In today’s Daily Mail, it has been reported that neurological development in the womb is the reason why most sufferers of the disease develop the condition.
The study found that in women suffering from anorexia in treatment centers in the US, UK and Norway more than 70% had suffered damage to key neurotransmitters that caused them to become anorexic. These neurological changes can be detected as early as age eight, say the researchers.
These findings could revolutionize the way we both conceptualize the disease and how it is treated around the world. Such a finding doesn’t just effect our understanding of etiology, but how these women understand themselves in the world and how they can interact with others–from their families, their friends.
Yet, it raises another key question: screening eight-year-olds to determine whether or not they are at risk for becoming anorexic seems like a pretty dangerous proposition to me. In fact, I would argue that it should not be done. Parents testing their children for the “anorexic brain” could go one of two very dangerous ways:
1) Katie’s potentially anorexic brain and lithe frame makes her an ideal candidate to become a supermodel if she’s coached in just the right way and pushed just a little, but not too hard or
2) Hannah’s possibly anorexic brain makes her parents terrified of her future anorexia such that they are constantly asking her “Honey, want another cookie?”, resulting in her becoming an overweight teenager who then resorts to bulimia nervosa to keep the weight off, or
3) you simply have constantly nervous parents who are wondering what will happen to their daughter now that they have the knowledge about their daughter’s potentially “anorexic brain”.
The research is interesting for sure. But testing children to find out if they will have anorexia seems like a horribly bad idea to me. Let’s try instead to control the images they see in the media and teach our children through the examples they see at home and the lessons they hear that they are beautiful no matter what weight or shape or size they are.
Summer Johnson, PhD