Term paper on Eating Disorders

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During any given day, the American society is inundated by our perception of the ideal woman. The ideal of a slim and slender body bombards young women on television, in magazines and even while walking across campus of their University. It is this ideal that is prevalent in our society that drives women and some men to starve and deprive their bodies of the necessary nutrients in order to achieve what appears to be most desirable. The motives behind each individual can vary, but most women do this to themselves because of their fear of fatness. These women suffer from low self-esteem and a distorted body image. (Crystal, 2000) However, these terms are how we define an eating disorder in Western society. There is no guarantee that these traits are universal for all cultures. Since one s culture defines who they are and what they believe in, the culture one lives in is one of the etiological factors leading to the development of eating disorders. As expected, rates of disorders appear to vary among different cultures and change as cultures evolve. For this reason, it is important to examine each culture individually and according to that culture s values and norms in order to accurately evaluate the psychopathologies. By looking at pathologies with a culturally universal perspective we risk entering a slippery slope to a worldwide misdiagnosis in which we are depriving some societies of the necessary therapy for the actual pathology at hand.

Historically, eating disorders have been a pathology concentrated within the white middle to upper class females in Western societies. (Bruch, 1966) However, it is wrong to assume that eating disorders are isolated to Western civilizations since they receive the majority of attention and research. There have been many studies that show the existence of eating disorders in non-Western cultures. Due to each culture s distinct history, beliefs and values, it is obvious that every culture will not share the same norms and values. For this reason the manner in which disorders are precipitated in individual cultures is bound to vary. For instance, in western society, the precipitators of anorexia nervosa have been found to be puberty and traumatic life stressors such as a move or family stress. (Crystal, 2000) These girls are often obedient, conscientious and characterized as anxious, guilty and working to live up to the demands of others. (Berenstein et al., 1991) Since the Western society is individualistic, these characteristics are stressed. It is not certain that in other, non-individualistic societies that these are the qualities that cause eating disorders. By defining these characteristics as the cross-cultural that factors influence the onset of eating disorders, we are excluding cultures in which these qualities may not be prevalent, therefore they may not act as precipitating factors.

In Western culture, the characteristics defined above are what trigger a young woman s fear of fatness, which is the underlying disposition behind an eating disorder. It is this intense and persistent fear of gaining weight that an anorexic is driven to continue dieting regardless of dramatic weight loss. (Worsnop, 1992) However, the fear of fatness does not hold true for every culture across the globe. A study in Hong Kong and India showed that anorexic individuals are not motivated by a fear of fatness and their distorted body image but rather by the desire to fast for religious purposes. During fasting, they are blinded from the subsequent health problems from following their religion. (Castillo, 1997) It is evident that the disease is present in instances, but the underlying goals differ across cultures. In another instance, researchers sampled Australian and Hong Kong born college students and looked at their eating attitudes. (Lake, 2000) The researchers found no difference in eating attitudes, but they did find a difference in body shape perceptions between the Australian-born and Hong-Kong-born individuals. Hong-Kong-born women had little body dissatisfaction when compared with Australian-born women. The traditional Chinese women showed more influence by Western values than the acculturated group. Their eating attitudes and body image perception was most similar to Australian-born women, which the authors felt supported the idea of the two cultures clashing then converging to one ideal. (Lake, 2000) The traditional group was more influenced by Western values than the acculturated group. A possible explanation for this is that traditional Chinese women feel in conflict with their family values when trying to emulate Western independence. Since the Australian and Hong Kong groups showed similar attitudes toward eating, but different body image perceptions, the authors thought that body image might not be a strong factor contributing to eating disorders in Hong-Kong-born women. (Lake, 2000) Once again, the motives behind the eating disorder vary cross-culturally and are not clear. It is impossible to universally define a disorder when the motives setting off the pathology diverge.

When you classify a disorder according to one culture, you may be overlooking key aspects such as language and emotional expression within that culture. For instance, a study done by Waller (1999) compared the relationship of eating problems to mood, since emotional eating is factor sometimes associated with eating disorders in Western society. It is difficult to define this as a factor associated cross culturally with eating disorders because rules for emotional expression vary in non-Western cultures. In this study, Waller compared emotional eating and bulimic attitudes among women in Japan and the United Kingdom (Waller, 1999). It is not well known whether or not emotional eating exists among Japanese women or if it is associated with eating disorders because the differences in rules of emotional expression between Western and non-Western cultures. In Japanese culture, women are found to be reluctant to express emotion and are poor at recognizing negative emotions through faces and body movements. (Waller, 1999) Alternatively, this may not be the case when examining the United Kingdom sample. When we examine one culture using the constructs of another, you are attributing aspects to the culture that are foreign to it. For this reason, it is necessary to define disorders within a culture according to its own values and traditions.

When we try to define a disorder universally, there is the possibility of finding cultures that do not fit the criteria. If there are exceptions to the rule, then the definition we are using should not be held true cross culturally. Frederick and Grow (1996) did a study which looks at how autonomy is related to self-esteem and the development of eating disorders. They define autonomy as freedom or being in control. The study found that "underlying deficits in autonomy were associated with reduced self-esteem, which, in turn, was related to eating disordered attitudes and behaviors" (Frederick &Grow, 1996). This says that cultures in which female social roles are restricted have lower rates of eating disorders. This is found to be true in cultures such as Muslim societies, where men dictate the...