The research on the aetiology of eating disorders (EDs) has implicated many apparently disparate risk factors, which include: biochemical, genetic, familial and psychological factors. In the environmental domain, the presence of particular traits such as perfectionism, comorbidity in the family, eating patterns during childhood and exposures to adverse events have been revealed to be implicated in the aetiology of EDs. Whereas, from a biological point of view some recent new findings have suggested the important role of genetic factors, in combination with share and non-share environmental factors, developmental factors seems to have also a crucial role in the development of EDs later in life.

In order to replicate these findings in a larger sample, we performed several combined population (case-control) and family-based studies of eight independently recruited samples from several European countries participating in the European Community Framework V “Factors in Healthy Eating” project. We analyzed as well genetic as environmental factors, but also developmental factors that might be implicated.

The findings of our studies agree with the growing body of research indicating that a variety of environmental and social factors are associated with unhealthy individual and family eating patterns during childhood and early adolescence, and which if not detected early could result in the development of a subsequent eating disorder.