Parental Education As Risk Factor For Eating Disorders

Genetic and environmental risk factors contribute to the risk for anorexia nervosa and other eating disorders.

Known risk factors for anorexia nervosa include female gender, young age, family member with anorexia nervosa, weight loss, and participation in weight sensitive sports or activities, i.e. gymnastics, dancing.

There has also been evidence that anorexia nervosa is more common in higher socioeconomic classes. This finding has made it one of the few brain disorders more common with this category.

A recent study using the Swedish medical registry sheds some light on increased risk related to socioeconomic status in anorexia and other eating disorders.

The Swedish medical registry used in this study contained over 2,000,000 records and from this group the research team were able to identify 15,474 girls and women (1.5%) with an inpatient eating disorder diagnosis along with 1051 boys and men (0.1%)

The key findings from the study included:

• Rates of eating disorder diagnosis increased with those born in 1982 and later
• Female eating disorder diagnosis rates were predicted by greater educational level in the father, mother and maternal grandparents
• Rates of anorexia nervosa and bulimia nervosa were nearly doubled in children of parents with post-graduate education compared to those without secondary education
• Parental social class and income were not linked to increased eating disorder risk

The authors note their study results finding links between eating disorders and socioeconomic status may be due to the higher education risk factor.

The authors also note the mechanism for this association is unclear. The speculate that high educational expectations for children may overlap with familial perfectionism, a trait known to increase eating disorder risk. Additionally, they note there is the potential for their study to be confounded by genetic factors.

This is an important study that will prompt further study of the link between parental education and eating disorder risk.

Readers with more interest in this topic can access the free full-text manuscript by clicking on the PMID link below.

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Photo of black bellied whistling duck is from the author's files.

Goodman A, Heshmati A, & Koupil I (2014). Family history of education predicts eating disorders across multiple generations among 2 million Swedish males and females. PloS one, 9 (8) PMID: 25162402