Discuss how biological and sociocultural factors influence one anxiety,

affective or eating disorder.

Bulimia nervosa is a very common eating and psychological disorder that can be characterized by
indulgent eating episodes that is then followed by such behaviour like dieting, idealization of thinness,
vomiting, excessive exercise excessive usage of laxatives. The number of people with this type of
eating disorder is increasing and is mostly accruing in women in their late adolescence and early
twenties. Bulimia nervosa as many other disorders has biological and sociocultural factors that
influences that.
Researchers argue that bulimia can be analysed from a biological perspective, meaning that this
disorder can be triggered by genetic predisposition. A study that refers to bulimia as from a biological
perspective is Kendler et al, a study that supports the idea of genetic diathesis for eating disorders.
The study’s full name is ‘Twin research to study genetic vulnerability in bulimia nervosa’ and the aim
is to investigate risk factors and genetic inheritance in bulimia nervosa. For that matter, around 2000
female twins, both monozygotic and dizygotic, were chosen as participants. In each pair, one twin had
developed bulimia. The researchers conducted interviews with the twins in order to see if the second
twin would develop bulimia as well and also to check if the concordance rate was higher in MZ
(monozygotic) twins or in DZ (dizygotic). The results showed that the concordance rate was indeed
higher in MZ twins (23%) rather than in DZ (9%). The results of the following study show only 55%
of heritability of bulimia, meaning that the rest 45% still remain due to other factors. The biological
factor is indeed strong enough to cause bulimia, however researchers shouldn’t ignore environmental
factors as well. There are a lot of issues that researchers meet while working with twins or families.
For example, the disorder might occur in both twins from the fact that they were raised in the same
environment and not because of genetic predisposition; also there can be ethical issues raised because
it is unethical to join family members or twins together if they didn’t expect to, or even the fact that
people that suffer from bulimia are highly secretive and might not share the full information with the
researchers. Another weakness of this study is that it cannot be fully generalized as all participants
were women. It is also doubtful that twins can be used as a representative of the population. And
finally because the study was a natural experiment, it is not possible to establish a cause-effect
relationship.
Sociocultural factors are also argued to have a big impact on the development of bulimia nervosa.
The perfect body ideals changed a lot over time, from an hourglass figure to a thin one, coming
mostly from the West and are seen by women on TV, social media, billboards, magazines etc. that
interpret beauty as thinness. According to Wardle and Marsland (1990) body shape can be a major
criterion in self-evaluation and evaluation of others, as many people have prejudices against
overweight people. A study related to sociocultural factors in developing bulimia nervosa is Levine et
al. (1994) that had the aim investigate the relationship between sociocultural factors and eating
attitudes and behaviours. For that matter, 385 middle school girls from the USA, aged between 10 and
14 answered questions about their eating behaviour, body satisfaction, concern with being thin,
attitudes from their family and peers, the importance of being thin, magazines etc. The majority of the
participants said that that receive clear messages from magazines, family, and peers that it is
important to be slim, that dieting or other methods to keep a slender figure were encouraged. The
results indicate that sociocultural ideals of a female body are directly related to body dissatisfaction
and weight concerns of young girls and woman and have a direct relation to the development of
bulimia nervosa. The study cannot be generalized to men as well; however it gives much more insight
into the reasons for the development of this disorder and a clear correlation between beauty standards
and development of bulimia can be established.
 We can conclude that bulimia nervosa is a complex disorder that might be influence not only by
one factor at one time, but much more such as biological, sociocultural and cognitive as well. We
cannot always be certain of the statistics due to cultural issues and also from the fact that this disorder
can be unique in each individual so it might vary from person to person. Therefore, the treatment of
this disorder shouldn’t be standardized but an individual approach must be found based on the factors
that triggered the disorder, either biological, sociocultural, cognitive or a combination on those.