Disordered eating was once seen as a “white woman’s disease”,
affecting mainly middle-to upper class white girls and young women. That myth
is being dispelled by recent research. Older women suffer disordered eating,
as do Black women, women of colour and Aboriginal women. One question is whether
or not disordered eating is really on the rise among women in these populations.
Disordered eating among other cultures may have gone undetected because of
the white woman stereotype. Another question is whether disordered eating among
non-white women is related to the pressures to integrate into white culture
and to conform to mainstream images of women.
Disordered eating is also not just a North American phenomenon. In Tokyo,
this is one of the most common mental health issues facing young women. The
percentage of Argentinean sufferers is three times greater than in the United
States. And disordered eating is increasing in China, where fad diets are on
the rise, raising questions, also, about the increasing influence of North
American culture in the world.
Events for Eating Disorder Awareness Week 2004, February 1-7
For more reading on these issues:
Web Sites
Books
- A Hunger So Wide and So Deep, A Multiracial View of Women's Eating problems
by Becky W. Thompson
University of Minnesota Press, 1994
- Feminist Perspectives on Eating Disorders
Edited by Patricia Fallon, Melanie A. Katzman, and Susan C. Wooley
Guilford Press, 1996 (Paper)
Written by: Alex Merrill
Health Educater
January 2004
