Reply #53: If it's solely biological, why is the age dropping?

[SmokingJacket]

I read this article very carefully, and while it gives good information about the latest brain research, it doesn't explain why this is hitting kids younger.

Now... I'm no scientist, but I have noticed that the age for "sexual eligibility" is also going down. Kids' clothes are sexually alluring at a much younger age than they used to be, and kids get "boyfriends" and "girlfriends" at an earlier age. There is a definite de-sexualization process going on with anorexic kids: no boobs, no period, no turning into fat old mom.

Yeah, I'm sure it's hardwired, but it's not that simple. It could be that it starts from many different social/psychological triggers, and then once the starvation process kicks in, becomes biological. Or it could be that anorexics are just canaries in a cultural coal mine: they're generically more senstive to social messages.

I had a little bout with this as a younger woman -- have grown up to have all kinds of anxiety-related problems. But had I grown up in a different family/country/era, it would have been different -- hard to explain how different (maybe worse, maybe better( but different)).