Medical experts believe that certain personality traits are common in anorexic patients, hinting that these traits may themselves play a pivotal role in causing the disorder.

Low self-esteem combined with a perfectionist attitude is widely known to cause anorexia. Also, people with obsessive compulsive ways of life are more likely to stay on their diets, often going anorexic in the extremes.

Doctors also believe that some teenagers take to anorexia in a bid to cope with the stresses of teen life. A bad image of the self also leads to a person going anorexic in order to achieve that ‘perfect’ body. Other negative feelings combined with perfectionism also lead to anorexia.

Environmental factors also play an extremely important role in causing anorexia nervosa. Today’s modern culture emphasizes on the need for a camera-perfect figure in human body. With most of the TV and movie screens crowded with zero-size figures, the minds of people, especially the adolescents, become obsessed with attaining a similar figure for themselves.

Also, living in a society where thinness is culturally advocated, people are bent towards an obsession for thinness, causing anorexia. Other factors like stressful relationships and physical or sexual abuse are also known to cause anorexia in people.

Experiments have proved that dysfunction in the hypothalamus (which regulates the brain’s metabolism), also causes the onset of anorexia nervosa. An imbalance in neurotransmitter (brain chemicals that works in signaling and regulatory functions) levels in the brain too leads to anorexic patients.

Medical researches have found out that malnutrition changes the hormonal balance in the human body. This disrupts with normal brain functioning. Such disruptions may lead to anorexia nervosa.

The brain becomes extra sensitive to tryptophan, found in most food items. Whenever tryptophan enters the body, it hampers with the brain functioning and causes anxiety. When the body fasts, a drop in tryptophan relaxes the patients’ body and they feel like abstaining from food.

Social and cultural pressure also act as a triggering factor for the disorder. Even families happen to exert an extra pressure sometimes on the children to maintain an acceptable body weight. This leads to an obsession about maintaining that “acceptable” body weight converting often to anorexia.

Stressful events in one’s life, too, may lead to such disorders at times. The onset of puberty, staying away from family or a breakup may lead to patients getting anorexic.

Anorexia patients often show some common psychological build-up, hinting that the psychology of the patient may lead to the disorder.

Obsessed achievers and perfectionists often tend to be more exposed to the risks of anorexia nervosa. These people are often “good children” who have always followed rules and acted as told. Their perfectionism seems to affect their psychology adversely to a level where they are not satisfied until they achieve the ultimate perfect picture of their own personalities.

Other psychological factors like tendency towards depression or anxiety, excessive worrying nature and inhibition are also found to be among the common causes of anorexic patients.

Medical experts believe that genetic formations also expose people to the fear of developing anorexia nervosa. They, however, are not sure exactly how do the genes cause the disorder.

Doctors believe that there is a genetic tendency for perfectionism in certain people. This tendency when combined with perseverance and emotional sensitivity causes anorexia. A brain chemical serotonin, which also causes depression in mankind, is also likely to have an important role in causing anorexia.

Researches have showed that predisposition to anorexia is likely to run in familial lines through the genes. If a person suffers from anorexia, the siblings are 10 to 20 times more likely to contract anorexia. Patients of anorexia also seem to have higher levels of brain hormone related to stress – cortisol. They also have lower levels of norepinephrine and serotonin.