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Can eating disorders be caused by other diseases, such as high cholesterol? Are there cases of people forced to follow a diet to reduce cholesterol who have developed an eating disorder?
Answers Stefano Erzegovesi, nutritionist and psychiatrist, scientific popularizer in the field of preventive nutrition and eating disorders (GO TO THE FORUM)
The cause of eating disorders is never just one. These disorders are defined as “of multifactorial origin” precisely because, in order to get sick, there must be the simultaneous presence of several risk factors: genetic, personal, family, environmental and social. For this reason, rather than talking about “eating disorders caused by other types of diseases”, I would speak of “eating disorders related to other types of diseases”. From this point of view, any type of “diet”, understood as a modification of one’s diet within a strict scheme, can be a risk factor for an eating disorder: a risk factor which, however, is not never enough, by itself, to make a person sick with an eating disorder. Personally, it has never occurred to me that a diet to reduce cholesterol could coincide with the onset of an eating disorder (normally, the most common reasons for starting a diet are weight loss or, more generally, the ” get back in shape») but, technically, it is possible.