Appetite and Eating Disorders

Eating disorders [EDs] (e.g. anorexia nervosa, bulimia nervosa, binge-eating disorder) are serious mental health problems: anorexia nervosa has the highest mortality rate of any mental health problem. Researchers do not fully understand their causes, which makes their prevention challenging. Underweight and obesity have much in common with EDs; all involve problems with food intake regulation, and all are under strong genetic influence - indicating that some causes may be the same. In contrast to EDs, much is known about the causes of weight differences. Differences in appetite help to explain why people differ in their weight, and genes are known to influence weight partly through the neurobiology that controls appetite regulation. Appetite may also predispose to EDs (poorer appetite to undereating EDs: e.g. anorexia nervosa; a larger appetite to overeating EDs: e.g. bulimia nervosa and binge-eating disorder). Certain parental feeding practices (PFPs) may also predispose children to underweight or obesity, by encouraging over/undereating; PFPs may also increase the likelihood of developing EDs for susceptible children. Virtually nothing is known about the causal roles of appetite and PFPs in EDs.

MQ – Transforming Mental Health are funding a new programme of research, led by Dr Clare Llewellyn, to find out if: (i) early appetite is a risk factor for the development of EDs; (ii) genes influence EDs partly through appetite; and (iii) PFPs can protect susceptible children from developing EDs. This programme of research uses four large cohorts from three different countries, each with information on appetite, PFPs, genetic risk and EDs.