Genetic influences on eating attitudes in a normal female twin population.
The Eating Attitudes Test (EAT) and the Eating Disorder Inventory (EDI) were administered to a female volunteer twin population aged 18 to 45 years. Both members of 147 monozygotic (MZ) and 99 dizygotic (DZ) twin pairs completed the questionnaires. Thirty-five subjects scored over the cut-off point of the EAT-26. Interviews of these high-scoring twins and their co-twins identified three subjects with a past history of anorexia nervosa, and three others with a history of a partial syndrome. A heritability value of 41% was obtained for the overall EAT scores, while factor analysis produced a 'dieting' factor with a heritability of 42%. The 'body dissatisfaction' and 'drive for thinness' subscales of the EDI had heritability values of 52 and 44% respectively. The genetic contribution to the variance in body mass index in the twin sample was estimated at 64%. For all the above phenotypes, an environmental model of transmission with heritability constrained to be zero, could be rejected. Conversely, we were unable to reject a purely additive genetic model with shared environmental variance constrained at zero, suggesting that family environment has little or no effect on the transmission of many of these traits.
Rutherford
J
J
Institute of Psychiatry, Maudsley Hospital, London.
McGuffin
P
P
Katz
R J
RJ
Murray
R M
RM
D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D001290:Attitude; D001835:Body Weight / Q000235:genetics; D004435:Eating / Q000235:genetics*; D001068:Feeding and Eating Disorders / Q000235:genetics / Q000523:psychology; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008875:Middle Aged; D010552:Personality Assessment; D010553:Personality Development; D012016:Reference Values; D012307:Risk Factors; D012931:Social Environment; D014427:Twins / Q000235:genetics* / Q000523:psychology; D014429:Twins, Dizygotic / Q000235:genetics / Q000523:psychology; D014430:Twins, Monozygotic / Q000235:genetics / Q000523:psychology