Genetic and environmental risk factors shared between disordered eating, psychological and family variables

The aim of this paper is to examine the sources and structure of covariatio n between disordered eating, neuroticism, parental care and protection, sel f-esteem and emotional reliance on other people. The eating, personality an d family functioning measures, obtained from 537 MZ and 344 DZ female twin pairs aged 30-45 years, were examined using multivariate biometrical geneti c modeling techniques. The best-fitting independent pathway model suggested that the measure of disordered eating shared unique environmental risk fac tors with neuroticism and perceptions of parental care. Neuroticism, self-e steem and emotional reliance on others shared genetic risk factors. The spe cific sources of individual variation for the six variables included a mixt ure of: (a) genetic, common and unique environment (disordered eating and t he parental perception variables), (b) genetic and unique environment (neur oticism) and (c) unique environment only (self-esteem and emotional relianc e on others); Disordered eating did not share genetic risk factors with any of the measured variables. The implications of these findings for our unde rstanding of disordered eating are discussed, (C) 2000 Elsevier Science Ltd . All rights reserved.