Objectives:

The goal of this paper is to review the existing literature about genetic and environmental influences on disordered eating attitudes and behaviors and exemplify with a clinical case observed in the Psychiatry outpatient unit.

Background:
Eating disorders, including anorexia nervosa and bulimia nervosa increase substantially in adolescence and are responsible for major psychosocial impairment. Emerging evidence suggests that genetic and environmental influences in early adolescence sustain the continuity of eating disorder symptoms.

Materials and Methods:
Review of the recent literature subordinated to the key words (body dissatisfaction, weight preoccupation and bulimia symptoms), as well as clinical interviews and records of an outpatient clinical case.

Results and Conclusions:
Body dissatisfaction and weight preoccupation seem to be highly related and part of a continuum in the development of eating disorders. Bulimic symptoms, however, seem to be more stable over time. This fact advocates for a higher genetic influence for the first two symptoms than for bulimia symptoms in young people.
All three symptoms are supported largely by stable genetic influences and non-shared environmental effects tend to be transient and contribute to change in symptoms over time. However, risk for bulimia symptoms may involve additional genetic, environmental and biological factors that are not shared with other symptoms of eating disorders.

“It runs in the family” – the etiological influences of eating disorder symptoms