The 14 risk factors for eating disorders

EDs are very difficult to treat disorders, which unfortunately have been increasing in the last 50 years, thanks, above all, to the fact that an unrealistic image of what is beautiful has been promoted and eating habits that are not healthy.

In this article we are going to see risk factors for eating disorders, explaining them in more detail and highlighting how they influence the appearance, especially, of anorexia and bulimia.

• Related article: "The 10 most common eating disorders"

Risk factors for eating disorders

The cause of eating disorders or eating disorders (anorexia, bulimia, binge eating disorder and unspecified eating disorder) is multifactorial. That is to say, Several factors are involved in its formation, including genetic aspects, psychological characteristics, sociocultural factors and environmental stressors.

Although to this day the specific weight of each of these factors is still not known with certainty nor its components, it is known that gender influences the chances of suffering a TCA. Of every ten people diagnosed with one of them, 9 are women, and

there is an increased risk of diagnosis in early adulthood and childhood or prepubertal.

Risk factors are those that facilitate the appearance of eating disorders. They can be individual, group and social factors. The combination of these different risk factors can lead to the development and maintenance of the disease.

Next We will see these risk factors for eating disorders, grouped into individual factors, family factors, and social factors., with which it will be better to understand how these eating disorders occur.

individual factors

Next we will see the factors associated with the characteristics of the person, whether they are of biological or social origin.

1. genetic predisposition

You are more likely to have an eating disorder if a family member, especially a father, mother, brother or sister, has been diagnosed with one in the past. It has been seen that, in the case of anorexia, genetics seems to explain about 70% of the vulnerability to receive the diagnosis.

Genetics can cause a person to have an unhealthy tendency with food, causing them to eat more than they need or, conversely, consume fewer calories than are needed to maintain function organic.

The weight of this factor may be increased by other environmental factors, such as the family environments in which it occurs. excessive importance to weight or unhealthy eating habits, in addition to factors such as the group of friends.

2. psychological traits

There are certain personality traits, such as having excessively high self-demands, perfectionist tendencies close to obsession, cognitive rigidity and a need for control that are closely related to presenting an eating disorder. This makes sense when we consider the ease with which people with disorders foodstuffs focus their attention on their alleged defects and wrong actions related to the way of eating

3. Low self-esteem

Low self-esteem implies making a negative and unsatisfactory assessment of oneself, which can affect any area of ​​life, especially in relation to food and how one sees oneself in the mirror.

In the case of people with anorexia, this low self-esteem is easily observable by the way they see themselves, overestimating their body size.

When looking in the mirror or trying on clothes, a whole series of negative emotions are triggered that aggravate, even more, the fact of having low self-esteem and worsen the symptoms of ED.

• You may be interested in: "Low selfsteem? When you become your own worst enemy"

4. Adolescence

A tough and traumatic adolescence is a very common event in people who, as adults, are diagnosed with eating disorders. It is in these years that there is a greater risk of developing an eating disorder, given that it is when he usually makes his debut, although the diagnosis worsens after he is over the age of majority.

Adolescence is a complicated stage, in which the person's personality, social role and self-esteem are are in full development, being more vulnerable to a social environment in which great importance is given to the image bodily.

• You may be interested in: "The 3 stages of adolescence"

5. female gender

As we were previously commenting, of every 10 cases of eating disorders, 9 are women and 1 a man. As can be seen, there are many more possibilities that as a woman you can be diagnosed with one of the eating disorders. It is believed that this has a lot to do with the gender roles, since the social pressure directed towards women to fit in with the canons of beauty is significantly higher than that experienced by men.

family factors

Now we are going to see the factors that come directly from the family, the way in which they relate to the person potentially victim of an eating disorder and the way in which they handle the diagnosis.

6. unstructured family environment

In those families in which there is no stable and secure structure, a breeding ground is generated to develop an ACT. in some of its members, especially adolescent girls.

7. Overprotective family environment

Sometimes, wanting to protect family members is done in such an exaggerated and toxic way that it contributes to psychopathology among its members.

There is a greater risk of being diagnosed with an eating disorder in a person who has lived a family dynamic that is too rigid, controlling and demandingand.

8. stressful family experiences

Changes in how the family is formed, either by separation, death of a member or birth of a sibling or sister that has not been handled in the best way, can cause a family member to see it as something especially traumatic.

It may also have happened that, within the same family, one of the members has committed physical or sexual abuse towards another family member, causing them to be traumatized for life and coping with the problem through the symptoms of ED.

Social factors

Finally we will see the risk factors that come from society itself, how it is structured and the way in which it relates to and treats its members, especially women.

9. current beauty canon

Although in recent years the "curvy" seems to be more popular, in addition to the fact that they are beginning to be seen as attractive to a greater range of women with physiques of all kinds, the feminine beauty canon continues to be that of a slim woman, without any fat or muscle.

Excessive thinness has been extolled in multiple media, especially in fashion shows and the covers of gossip magazines.

Although great changes are being achieved, there are not a few women who, influenced by these media, continue to rejecting the idea of ​​looking fat, seeing it as something really grotesque, and defending that extreme thinness is 'healthy'.

10. Social pressure regarding the image

Related to the previous point, in recent decades, both men and women have been giving more importance to the image.

We are not only talking about the fact that women are bombarded with images of extreme thinness as a synonym beauty, but also are pressured by family members, friends and others to look like

This is not only visible in women, it also occurs in men, but since the male beauty canon is very different, prioritizing extreme muscle building and pressing to be bundled, the vigorexia, the disorder associated with this, is not an eating disorder.

11. Some sports and professions

There are certain sports, such as dance or synchronized swimming, in which the appearance of an eating disorder can be favored., due to the way in which the image is treated when practicing this type of activity. Other sports in which you run the risk of having a great obsession with weight and what you eat are those in which you compete by weight class.

People who work in the world of fashion, entertainment or are actors and actresses also run the risk of giving too much importance to your body image, being able to enter the shady world of TCA.

12. physical harassment

People who have been teased and mocked for their physique, especially as teenagers and children, combined with a feeling of insecurity can end up developing an obsession with their body image, and evolve into something more serious.

13. The sizing system

The sizes of clothing, shoes and other clothing items is not a unified system. Each manufacturer applies its own standards on which garment should be classified in one size or another. This means that size M in one store may be equivalent to size S or L in other stores.

It may seem banal, but it is not, especially if you are a woman who all her life believed she had a size, change stores and see that the same size is too small for her, and she decides to lose weight, despite already being slim. It is very difficult what is the exact size of oneself.

According to the report "Not finding your size promotes anorexia", about 40% of the population decides to go on a diet when, going shopping, they cannot find clothes in their size, or they thought they had one and it turns out that, in the end, they are too small.

14. Pages that promote TCAs

There are people who have these eating disorders who, far from seeking help to try to get out of the well or try to understand their problems, they apologize for it, although this is not difficult to understand if you understand the way in which the canon of beauty is still valid.

The existence of pages like Pro-Ana and Pro-Mia not only defend having an eating disorder as a way of life, but they also dare to give advice to 'help' other girls to go ahead with their anorexia or bulimia.

They also teach how to trick family members into believing that they are eating or that their bodies are simply genetically that way. Access to these types of pages is very easy and, despite the fact that more than one has been closed, they appear as if it were an epidemic.

Bibliographic references:

• Association against Anorexia and Bulimia (s.f.). Association against Anorexia and Bulimia. Barcelona, ​​Spain. Recovered from: http://www.acab.org/es.
• Attia, E. (2010). Anorexia nervosa: current status and future directions. Annual Review of Medicine. 61 (1): 425–35.
• Fuglset, T.S.; Landro, N.I.; Reas, D.L.; Rø, Ø. (2016). Functional brain alterations in anorexia nervosa: a scoping review. Journal of Eating Disorders. 4: 32.
• Portela de Santana, M. L., da Costa Ribeiro, H., Mora Giral, M. and Raich, R. m. (2012). The epidemiology and risk factors of eating disorders in adolescence; a review. Nourish. Hosp. 27(2), 391-401.
• Sari, F.S. (2009). 100 Questions & Answers About Anorexia Nervosa. Jones & Bartlett Learning. p. xvi.