Delayed brain development, genetics, and mental health challenges contribute to disordered eating in young adults, according to a European study by King’s College London.
A new study led by the Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology & Neuroscience (IoPPN) at King’s College London has found that over half of 23-year-olds in Europe exhibit restrictive, emotional, or uncontrolled eating behaviors. The research suggests that structural differences in the brain contribute to the development of these eating patterns.
Published in Nature Mental Health, the study explores the relationship between genetics, brain structure, and disordered eating behaviors in young people. Researchers discovered that the natural process of brain maturation—marked by a reduction in the volume and thickness of the cortex (the brain’s outer layer) during adolescence—may influence whether teenagers develop restrictive or emotional/uncontrolled eating habits in early adulthood.
Understanding Eating Behaviors
Restrictive eating behaviors, such as dieting and purging, involve the deliberate limitation of food intake to control body weight and shape. In contrast, emotional or uncontrolled eating behaviors, like binge-eating, are characterized by episodes of consuming food in response to negative emotions or compulsive urges.
The researchers analyzed data from 996 adolescents in the IMAGEN longitudinal cohort in England, Ireland, France, and Germany. Participants provided genetic data, completed questionnaires about their wellbeing and eating behaviors, and had an MRI scan at ages 14 and 23. At age 23, participants were categorized into three types of eating behaviors: healthy eaters (42 percent), restrictive eaters (33 percent), and emotional or uncontrolled eaters (25 percent).
The study found that the three groups had different patterns of mental health and behavior over time.
Young people with unhealthy eating behaviors (restrictive and emotional/uncontrolled) at age 23 had higher levels of both internalizing problems (for example, anxiety or depression) and externalizing problems (for example, hyperactivity, inattention, or conduct problems) at age 14, compared to healthy eaters. Internalizing problems significantly increased with age between 14 to 23 among unhealthy eaters. Although externalizing problems decreased with age in all groups, overall levels were higher among those with emotional or uncontrolled eating.
Restrictive eaters dieted more throughout adolescence compared to healthy eaters. Emotional/uncontrolled eaters increased their dieting between ages 14 to 16 and binge eating between ages 14 to 19, compared to healthy eaters. Unhealthy eating behaviors were linked with obesity and increased genetic risk for high BMI.
Brain Maturation and Genetic Influence
Researchers analyzed Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) data at 14 and 23 years to investigate brain maturation over time and how much the volume and thickness of the cortex had decreased. Results indicated that brain maturation was delayed and less pronounced in unhealthy eaters. It played a role in the link between mental health problems at age 14 and the development of unhealthy eating behaviors at age 23 and this connection was unrelated to BMI. Reduced brain maturation also helped explain how genetic risk for high BMI influences unhealthy eating behaviors at age 23.
In particular, reduced maturation of the cerebellum – a brain region that controls appetite – helped explain the link between genetic risk for high BMI and restrictive eating behaviors at age 23.
The research, which received funding from the Medical Research Foundation, Medical Research Council and National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR) Maudsley Biomedical Research Centre, highlights how brain maturation, genetics, and mental health difficulties interact to contribute to eating disorder symptoms.
Xinyang Yu, PhD student at King’s IoPPN and first author of the study, said: “Our findings reveal how delayed brain maturation during adolescence links genetics, mental health challenges and disordered eating behaviors in young adulthood, emphasising the critical role of brain development in shaping eating habits.”
Dr Zuo Zhang, Research Fellow at King’s IoPPN and co-author of the study, said: “By showing that different unhealthy eating behaviors are linked to differential trajectories of mental health symptoms and brain development, our findings may inform the design of more personalized interventions.”
Professor Sylvane Desrivières, Professor of Biological Psychiatry at King’s IoPPN and senior author of the study, said: “Our findings highlight the potential benefits of improved education aimed at addressing unhealthy dietary habits and maladaptive coping strategies. This could play a crucial role in preventing eating disorders and supporting overall brain health.”
Reference: “Relationships of eating behaviors with psychopathology, brain maturation and genetic risk for obesity in an adolescent cohort study” by Xinyang Yu, Zuo Zhang, Moritz Herle, Tobias Banaschewski, Gareth J. Barker, Arun L. W. Bokde, Herta Flor, Antoine Grigis, Hugh Garavan, Penny Gowland, Andreas Heinz, Rüdiger Brühl, Jean-Luc Martinot, Marie-Laure Paillère Martinot, Eric Artiges, Frauke Nees, Dimitri Papadopoulos Orfanos, Hervé Lemaître, Tomáš Paus, Luise Poustka, Sarah Hohmann, Nathalie Holz, Christian Bäuchl, Michael N. Smolka, Nilakshi Vaidya, Henrik Walter, Robert Whelan, Ulrike Schmidt, Gunter Schumann, Sylvane Desrivières and on behalf of the IMAGEN consortium, 10 January 2025, Nature Mental Health.
DOI: 10.1038/s44220-024-00354-7
Funding: NIHR Maudsley Biomedical Research Centre, Medical Research Foundation, Medical Research Council
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1 Comment
With it not being clearly stated in any of the several articles I, as a now senior lay American male victim, investigator and discoverer browsed looking for it, assuming the study was performed between 2010 and 2020, then it is simply another costly (time and money) fatally-flawed “exercise-in-futility.”
And, if so, it didn’t factor-in Dr. Arthur F. Coca’s (by 1935; “The Pulse Test,” 1956) kind of nearly subclinical non-IgE-mediated food allergy reactions, officially (FDA in the US) approved toxic food poisoning (namely soy mostly processed with toxic hexane with some residue [early 1970s, US], the neurotoxic cooking oil preservative TBHQ [1972, US] and added excitotoxic/neurotoxic brain damaging mind altering artificially cultured “free” [can cross the blood-brain barrier] monosodium glutamate [MSG; 1980, US]; also other potentially deadly, ‘long-term’ [months to decades; highly individual, many individual variables], food additives) and/or excessive related/resultant medical errors (e.g., bad dietary advice).
Not only is it a sad commentary on the early state of American “illnesscare” but I personally wrote the FDA (with replies) of my early lay findings of connections between food allergies, added MSG, chronic disease and obesity in October of 2005 (obviously, now, in-vain). Since, I’ve written to thousands of professional others of various specialties, globally, updating as possible, with mostly similar results. So, why is it so many more-highly-educated researchers are such slow learners?