Eating Disorders and Body Image

Eating Disorders

According to the American Psychiatric Association's authoritative Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-IV), “Eating Disorders are characterized by severe disturbances in eating behavior.” These include extreme overeating (either continuous or in binge episodes), severe restriction of food intake (to the point of starvation), and binge eating episodes followed closely by extreme purging behaviors. These symptoms are accompanied by feelings of extreme distress about body weight and shape.

The single best predictor of risk for eating disorders is gender. Females are much more likely than males to develop eating disorders. Conservative estimates suggest that approximately 3% of males and 6% of females struggle with an eating disorder, including people from preadolescence to the elderly (Hudson, Hiripi, Pope, & Kessler, 2007). Among adolescents, the prevalence is 14% among females and 6.5% among males (Kjelsås, Bjørnstrøm, & Götestam, 2004). Over half of teenage girls and nearly a third of teenage boys use unhealthy weight control behaviors such as fasting, smoking cigarettes, vomiting, and taking laxatives. Professionals in eating prevention consider dieting as a “gateway” behavior. For example, teen girls who diet frequently are 12 times as likely to binge as girls who don't diet.

Other research indicates that 42% of girls in first through third grades want to be thinner (Collins, 1991), 81% of 10-year-olds are afraid of being fat (Mellin et al., 1997), 46% of 9- to 11-year-olds are sometimes or very often on diets, and 82% of their families are sometimes or very often on diets (Gustafson-Larson & Terry, 1992).

There is a shortage of research in eating disorders among non-White populations. Some studies document a high rate of eating disorder behaviors and risk factors, including body dissatisfaction, among African American women and suggest that binge eating and purging is at least as common among African American women as White women. A study of 1,866 Latinas ages 11 to 20 showed that [Page 739]eating disorders prevalence was relatively consistent with overall U.S. trends, with Latinas of higher socioeconomic status more at risk. Eating disorder symptoms among Latinas were positively correlated with body dissatisfaction, negative affectivity, substance use, and low self-esteem (Granillo, Jones-Rodriguez, & Carvajal, 2005). Among American Indian youth, body dissatisfaction is associated with unhealthy weight control behaviors. A comprehensive study by Story et al. (1997) found almost half of American Indian girls and one third of boys had been on weight loss diets in the past year, with 27% reporting self-induced vomiting and 11% reporting the use of diet pills. Girls who reported feeling overweight were more likely to engage in unhealthy weight control practices.

The illnesses seem to be spreading with the globalization of consumer culture and marketing, with pervasive emphasis on appearance. In response to consumer culture's focus on appearance, many females self-soothe and seek agency by controlling their bodies, a practice that leads to eating disorders. Nonetheless, eating disorders have no single origin. They are affected by, and affect in turn, biological, psychological, emotional, familial, cultural, spiritual, sexual, gender, and social factors. In order of prevalence, the eating disorders generally take one of the following

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