Word: anorexia
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About 15 times as many boys are given a diagnosis of Asperger's syndrome as are girls, and nearly 10 times as many girls develop anorexia as boys. It's easy to see how an outsized sense of perfectionism in a female might lead to an unhealthy obsession with thinness - given society's preoccupation with physical appearance - while a male might end up obsessing about cars or trains, which is typical in autistic boys. "The reason [Asperger's] is usually diagnosed less often in females may be because it takes a different form - anorexia may be just...
Treasure has found that starvation itself intensifies autistic characteristics like rigidity and obsession - a phenomenon that applies to all people, but particularly those with anorexia. "When they are underweight, people with anorexia get even more like people with autism," says Treasure. "They can't interpret other people's emotions, they can't regulate their own emotions, and they get overwhelmed when they are frightened or angry...
...according to Dr. Eric Hollander, an attending psychiatrist at Montefiore Medical Center in New York City and an expert on autism, there is evidence that the "repetitive thoughts and behaviors, rigid routines and rituals and perfectionism" that characterize both autism and anorexia may be traced to the same regions in the brain. Imaging studies of patients with either condition have found variations in the activity of brain regions like the anterior cingulate cortex, for example, where disruptions contribute to obsessive-compulsive behavior and aberrant social behaviors...
...Anorexia is] highly heritable, it runs in families, and it's clear now that it's affected by a cluster of [early life] vulnerabilities like anxiety and perfectionism. If you don't have those vulnerabilities, you are very unlikely to develop anorexia," says Dr. Walter Kaye, director of the eating-disorders program at the University of California, San Diego...
Practically speaking, that means researchers may be able to pinpoint specific early risk factors to help identify kids who are vulnerable to developing anorexia - much the same way specialists can now recognize signs of autism as early as 12 months. "We are where autism was 20 years ago. There were the same discussions about the mother causing kids to be autistic, and most of the theory and treatment was based on that," says Kaye, referring to the outdated notion that autism was caused by cold, neglectful "refrigerator" mothers. "I think that anorexia is as biological as autism. It's just...