... may be hereditary. Although, families generally share the same home environment and so other factors may therefore have a causal influence. Foe example, the child may have learned the dysfunctional eating behaviours through simply observing their parents or siblings eating behaviour. Psychologists have therefore looked at evidence obtained from twin studies. There are two types of twins; monozygotic which are genetically identical and come from the same egg and dizygotic which are not genetically identical and come from two separate eggs. Holland (1984) carried out a study to investigate the role of genetics as a cause for eating disorders. His procedure was to measure the concordance rates of MZ and DZ twins for anorexia nervosa. His findings were that MZ concordance rate was 55%, whereas DZ concordance rate was only 7%. Holland concluded that the higher level of concordance amongst the MZ twins indicate genetic factors as having a causal ...

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