Letters to the Editor
-
genetics and society
It's entirely plausible that a complicated mental illness like anorexia might have multiple causes and risk factors, both genetic and societal.
Many mental disorders are like this. For example, schizophrenia has a strong genetic component, but often requires certain stress triggers to manifest. The same is doubly true for more conventional addictive illnesses, such as alcoholism, where there is both a genetic component and social risk factors (e.g. growing up with an alcoholic relative).
It would be interesting to find out how many persons with anorexia (or persons simply at the dangerous end of the body-dysmorphia scale) have relatives that are similarly affected.
Alcoholism was long regarded as a social disease brought on by a lack of willpower, and only in the past few decades have scientists recognized that there is also a genetic predisposition at play as well. The same could very well be true of anorexia, another disease that we like to regard as a "social ill" rather than a potentially genetically-influenced mental illness.