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Updated: Jun 7, 2026

A Computer-Based Platform for Aiding Clinicians in Eating Disorder Analysis and Diagnosis
Published on: May 10, 2022
Bivariate analysis of disordered eating characteristics in adolescence and young adulthood
Melissa A Munn1, Michael C Stallings, Soo Hyun Rhee
1Department of Psychology and Neuroscience, University of Colorado, Boulder, Colorado, USA. melissa.munn@colorado.edu
Objective:
We examined the etiology of two disordered eating characteristics.
Method:
Participants included 1,470 female adolescent and young adult twins and their female nontwin siblings. Phenotypic factor analyses of a seven-item eating pathology screening tool yielded two factors: weight and shape concerns and behaviors (WSCB) and binge eating (BE). Univariate and bivariate extended twin analyses (including cotwins and nontwin siblings) were used to estimate the magnitude of genetic and environmental influences on these characteristics.
Results:
Analyses indicated that individual differences in WSCB and BE could be explained by additive genetic influences (a² = 0.43 (95% CI: 0.33-0.52) and 0.49 (95% CI: 0.36-0.58), respectively), with the remaining variance due to nonshared environmental influences. The genetic correlation between WSCB and BE was estimated at 0.64; the nonshared environmental correlation was estimated at 0.27.
Discussion:
These results corroborate previous findings on genetic and environmental influences on disordered eating characteristics and suggest that findings can be extended to nontwin populations.
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