The article "Anorexia linked to 'autistic' thinking" published recently in New Scientist reports on research which suggests that autism and anorexia nervosa, along with other eating disorders, might in fact be closely related problems (Geddes, 2009). Although this is interesting for treatment options, what interested me more was the information that more than 50%, and up to 83%, of such disorders "have a genetic basis" (¶ 4). I thought this was interesting because it seems to conflict with the idea in Quest 2 that culture is the main causal factor (Hartmann, 2007, p.167-8). In "Culture and Mental Illness", Hartmann implies that there could be no such eating disorder without the cultural component of seeing "slender female bodies [as] most desirable" (p.167). However, if the disorder is in fact genetic, and is passed on from parent to child, then we would expect evidence of eating disorders to exist in all cultures, not just a few.
My idea, also suggested by Geddes's report, was that because the forms of autism can vary widely, which is why they are called autism spectrum disorders, the cultural background was not really the cause of these disorders, but that it influenced how an underlying genetic disorder was expressed; that is, the culture could strongly determine the specific symptoms of the disorder caused by genes. Perhaps in the past, eating disorders took different forms, or real cases of anorexia nervosa did occur but were simply not recognised and recorded as disorders, as Geddes also tells us some reseachers now think might be the case with Asperger's syndrome, which is a form of autism that was thought to be more common in males, but which perhaps occurs equally in women, though with different symptoms.
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References
Geddes, L. (2009, April 22). Anorexia linked to 'autistic' thinking. New Scientist. Retrieved May 8, 2009 from http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20227054.900-anorexia-linked-to-autistic-thinking.html
Hartmann, P. (2007). Quest 2 Reading and Writing (2nd. ed.). New York: McGraw-Hill ESL/ELT
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