Eating Disorders

Sociodemographic and Cultural Context

In general, eating disorders most commonly occur among young, white, affluent females in modern, industrialized countries. Concerning the gender distribution of eating disorders, 90 percent of individuals with eating disorders are female. Cultural norms of the body are critical to understanding why females are more vulnerable to eating disorders than are males. Specifically, the pervasive thinness norm for women is a major contributor to gender differentiation. The ideal body norm for males, in contrast, is to be muscular and not skinny or weak. Rather than desiring weight loss and thinness, males want to gain weight and size from muscle.

Females perceive themselves as overweight even when they are not. For example, over half of college females believe they are overweight when a much lower percentage actually is. In addition, nearly three out of four college females of normal weight report their wanting to be thinner. This striving for thinness develops early. For example, girls as young as 6 years old choose as ideal image silhouettes of girls who are thinner than they are and already falsely think of themselves as overweight.

The ideal body type of thinness is also crucial to understanding the international distribution of eating disorders. Within developing countries, many people do not get enough to eat; only the affluent can afford to be fat or corpulent. So, fatness becomes a symbol of wealth and an ideal body shape. Therefore, eating disorders, with their fear of fatness, are unlikely. Further, the eating disorder of bulimia nervosa is less likely, due to the expense of buying large quantities of food for bingeing. Also, it seems improbable in a developing country that one would have anorexia nervosa, or deliberate self-starvation, when forced starvation is evident.

In contrast, in modern, industrialized nations, fatness no longer symbolizes affluence because people generally obtain enough to eat. In fact, it is possible to eat too much. Thus, being slim becomes a symbol of [Page 272]discretionary eating, and appearance ideals shift from plumpness to thinness. Affluent groups in particular have the resources to eat as much, as or little, as they want.

In the United States, whites compose most of the affluent classes, which helps to explain why eating disorders are more prevalent among whites. Also, larger-size body norms for women may be more prevalent among certain ethnicities, such as African Americans and Hispanics. Eating disorders are more common among individuals of color as they become more upwardly mobile, and among recent immigrants to the United States who experience acculturation.

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