Lifetime course of eating disorders: design and validity testing of a new strategy to define the eating disorders phenotype

Abstract

The assessment of lifetime symptoms may produce a more accurate definition of the eating disorders phenotype. Obsessive-compulsive traits in childhood may moderate the course producing longer periods of underweight status. These findings may have important implications for nosology, treatment and future aetiological studies of eating disorders.

Perfectionism and Eating Disorders

“…The type of perfectionism that they refer to is similar to the "global childhood rigidity" (Anderluh, Tchanturia, Rabe-Hesketh, Collier, & Treasure, 2009), which was found by Halmi and colleagues (2012) to be the predominate perfectionistic feature preceding development across all anorexia nervosa subtypes, including restricting, purging and binge eating subtypes. It has been proposed that childhood temperament including anxiety, obsessions and perfectionism may reflect neurobiological risk factors for developing anorexia nervosa, where restricted eating is used to moderate negative mood caused by skewed interactions between serotonin inhibitory and dopamine reward systems (Kaye, Wierenga, Bailer, Simmons, & Bischoff-Grethe, 2013).…”

Emotion generation and regulation in anorexia nervosa: A systematic review and meta-analysis of self-report data

“…There are, however, early life factors proposed to predispose people to AN. These include: genetic predisposition (Anderluh, Tchanturia, Rabe-Hesketh, Collier, & Treasure, 2009); temperament and personality factors (especially perfectionism, persistence and harm-avoidance; Atiye, Miettunen, & Raevuori-Helkamaa, 2015;Halmi et al, 2000); high expressed-emotion within families (Kyriacou, Treasure, & Schmidt, 2008); and underpinning neurocognitive and social cognitive difficulties of rigidity, detailfocus and attentional bias to 'threat' (Lopez, Tchanturia, Stahl, & Treasure, 2008;Oldershaw et al, 2011;Roberts, Tchanturia, Stahl, Southgate, & Treasure, 2007).…”

The Effectiveness of Cognitive Remediation Therapy in Patients with a Severe or Enduring Eating Disorder: A Randomized Controlled Trial

“…Because of the transdiagnostic nature of eating disorders [11,23], the instability of eating disorder symptoms [24] and the fact that neuropsychological deficits are present across eating disorders [25], it could be hypothesized that CRT might be suitable for all types of eating disorders, in particular for patients with a severe or enduring eating disorder, since neuropsychological deficits might play a role in the maintenance of the eating disorder [10]. …”