The Psychology of Eating: From Healthy to Disordered Behavior

104 Body Dissatisfaction

Ethnicity

Body dissatisfaction has predominantly been seen as a problem for white women,
and this is in part supported by the literature. For example, higher rates of a
range of behaviors associated with body dissatisfaction have been found in
white women when compared to black and Asian women, including bulimic
behaviors (Gray, Ford, and Kelly, 1987), generalized disordered eating
(Abrams, Allen, and Gray, 1992; Akan and Grilo, 1995), body dissatisfaction,
and eating concerns (Rucker and Cash, 1992; Powell and Khan, 1995). One
recent study explored differences in eating-related attitudes and body dissatis-
faction across a number of different cultural groups and reported that the drive
for thinness was stronger in Western countries and Japan when compared to
India, Oman, and the Philippines (Kayano et al., 2008). The literature examin-
ing the relationship between body dissatisfaction and ethnic group, however,
is contradictory, as other studies report the reverse relationship between ethni-
city and weight concern. For example, Mumford, Whitehouse, and Platts (1991)
reported results from a school in the north of England which indicated that
the prevalence of bulimia nervosa was higher among Asian schoolgirls than
their white counterparts. In parallel, Striegel-Moore et al. (1995) reported
higher levels of a drive for thinness in black girls, and Hill and Bhatti (1995)
reported higher levels of dietary restraint in 9-year-old Asian girls when both
these samples were compared to white girls. Furthermore, additional studies
have suggested that equally high levels of weight concern can be found in women
and girls regardless of their ethnicity (Dolan, Lacey, and Evans, 1990; Ahmed,
Waller, and Verduyn, 1994; Le Grange, Stone, and Brownell, 1998). For exam-
ple, similar levels of eating attitudes were found across samples of participants
from Japan, India, Oman, and the Philippines to those reported in Western
samples (Kayano et al., 2008). Body dissatisfaction and the internalization of
the thin ideal have also been reported across a number of different cultures,
including among teenage girls in Mexico (Austin and Smith, 2008) and in
Guatemala (Vander Wal et al., 2008). Some research therefore indicates that
whites are more body dissatisfied than Asians and blacks, other research
shows that whites are less dissatisfied, and some research shows that body
dissatisfaction exists across a range of different cultures and ethnic groups.

Social class

Body dissatisfaction is generally believed to be a problem for the higher
social classes, but the literature on class is also contradictory. Several