Intercultural Influences On Binge-Eating Disorders

Arbetter, Sandra R. "Eating disorders: emotional foods fights." Current Health 2, a Weekly Reader publication Mar. 1989: 4+. Opposing Viewpoints in Context. Web. 29 Feb. 2016.

It has been found that eating disorders are most common in the western and industrialized culture where food is abundant. This is because these individuals attach a lot of importance to their physical appearance and are willing to do anything to get the dream figure. An eating disorder is not just watching what one eats and exercising on a daily basis but is rather an illness that causes serious disturbances in eating behaviour, such as great and harmful cutback of the consumption of food as well as feelings of serious anxiety about their body shape or mass. They would start to stop themselves to go out anywhere just so that they could work out and burn all of the calories of a meal or snack that they had scoffed earlier. Two of the most common eating disorders are anorexia nervosa and bulimia nervosa. The regular description of a patient with either disease would be a youthful white female, with an upper social standing in a predictably socially competitive environment.

This article describes how unrealistic standards of attractiveness set by Western society are internalized by women from a variety of cultural backgrounds and translated into fat-phobia and body dissatisfaction and then discusses alternative cultural influences for food refusal such as issues of control, acculturation, and religious asceticism. The author claims that there is a need for culturally sensitive questionnaires and diagnostic criteria and suggests that the notion of anorexia as a culture bound syndrome is no longer valid as the illness as been identified in a number of non-western societies. A valid point is made

Maria’s family-related experiences learned during her childhood contributed to a distorted cognition of eating. Maria’s family food-related experiences are associated with her mother’s restriction of eating as a way of punishment. Use of food as a punishment increases the intake of food when the children have access to it. As consequence of this type of punishment Maria learned maladaptive attitudes and behaviors such as eating secretly and keeping food in hidden places in order to manage her hunger. Researches propose that food restrictions increase desire and intake of the food. At the same time the individual will show difficulties to self-regulate the food

Perhaps one of the most evident flaws is the continual development and marketing of fad diets. These fad diets are generally characterized as being simple, short-term, and unrealistically promising. In other words, they do more harm than good. Deakin University’s Dr. Tim Crowe explains the issues behind these “Dieting Myths” in his article, Nutrition Messages Given By Fad Diets Can Alter people’s Food Perceptions (2008); In his words, “fad diets have been known to

In her essay, “The Globalization of Eating Disorders,” Susan Bordo informs her audience of the growing trends in eating disorders. Through her argument, Bordo illustrates the cruel identity of body-image distortion syndrome while she searches for a solution to the eating-disorder problem by looking to its birthplace in culture. Making use of several examples and scenarios, facts and statistics, and appeals to pathos and logos to construct her argument, Bordo shows a strong intent on eradicating the growing crisis in a reasonably sound argument.

Dieting fads and “miracle weight loss drugs” are extremely prevalent in American culture. "Environment plays a huge role in the onset of disordered eating, such that the majority of people who live in our disordered culture (where thinness is overvalued, dieting is the norm, portion sizes are huge, etc) will develop some degree of disordered eating," (Diller, Vivian 2011). It has often been argued that disordered eating does not have a direct link to media and social standards. A study in Fiji disproves that claim. “Once Fijian girls were introduced to the standards of beauty presented in shows, the prevalence of eating disorders increased. There had been nearly no instances of eating disorders in Fiji prior to the introduction of television to the island.”(Ballaro, Wagner

The author is a mother and editor for the Wall Street Journal. The target readers of this article would be parents. This article goes to prove that parents are to fault for not teaching their children the connection between hunger and being full and they often blame the food industry for the junk food. The author gives several examples, including her own, on how parents influence how their children eat. She said that “we underestimate the dramatic impact our own behavior and the way we talk about food makes a difference”. She uses many studies to support her reason for why parents need to take responsibility and correct their approach when it comes to how kids are eating and what they are eating.

Medical care and nutritional education of the children is obviously the parents’ responsibility, but so many parents are careless about basic nutrition and the need for exercise. In addition, how many parents just don’t have the gumption to “battle” with their preschoolers regarding what they eat? Some parents have the attitude that “at least they are eating SOMETHING”. We’ve all been there, at our wit’s end just trying to get a picky 2 year old toddler to eat some kind of fruit and then using the cookies, pudding cups, chips, or gummy snacks as a reward (or substitution). A parents control over meals and their attitudes toward dietary intake are factors that contribute to childhood obesity. “Hood et al. (2000) found in their study that disinhibited eating in the parents, when coupled with dietary restraint, may be associated with an increased risk for obesity in the child”.

In the world, more than two thirds of adults, about 68.8%, are considered to be obese (NIH, 2012). The consumption of westernized diets is something that is consuming the world itself. Throughout recent history the consumption food has become more and more of a dangerous act. The westernized diet often contains too many calories, sugars, and fats that people are ingesting daily. How is the constant consumption of this diet effecting everyday life? What are the changes internally that are causing disease and discomfort? If the consumption of the westernized diet is proven to be harmful, will that change the way that people perceive food? If proven to negatively impact physiological functions this knowledge may help the westernized culture

The relationship between ethnicity and eating disorder risk factors is a complex issue. There are many other variables that affect these two ideas, such as socioeconomic status, level of educational attainment, and acculturation. Flaws in studies such as unrepresentative and insubstantial sample size, and participation bias still have yet to be corrected for in order to obtain a more accurate understanding of the role ethnicity and its factors plays in eating disorders. Previous studies have suggested that the difference in eating disorder symptoms across ethnicities were negligible; however, the risk factors, such as the

Are Eating Disorders are a worldwide problem? There are 3 types of eating disorders: Anorexia Nervosa, the fear of gaining weight or becoming fat, Bulimia Nervosa, the act of binge eating then purging or vomiting, and Binge Eating Disorder, eating until uncomfortably full in one sitting. The most common ones are Anorexia Nervosa and Bulimia Nervosa. Even though they have become more common in the 20th century, the first cases of eating disorders were in the Western world and dated from the 12th and 13th centuries. Most famously was the case of Saint Catherine of Siena, who denied herself food as part of a spiritual denial of self. Throughout history, anorexia was caused by ritual beliefs, from the time of Western Christianity, women who starved themselves were thought to be closer to God. Ritual starvation lasted for a couple of days, in order to prepare the individual to receive some sacred message from God. During modern times, eating disorders are very different than before, today it 's mostly the way people see themselves that drives them. They are still more common in women than they are in men, but it does not mean men do not develop them. Eating disorders are made up of physiological disorders characterized by abnormal or disturbed eating habits meaning they do not ingest food regularly, or if they do they purge it. Purging means to force yourself to throw up the food you have ingested. People throw up due to the fact that they don’t feel skinny enough, and

Furthermore, culture concept of beauty have negatively influenced on the development of anorexia on teen girls. Each culture has its concept of beauty and usually everyone wants to fit on, mainly women and girls. Young girls, being more vulnerable because of their age, they are more likely to feel inferior if they notice that do not fit the standards of beauty on their culture. For instance, according to the book Inside Anorexia: The Experiences of Girls and their Families, anorexia is becoming more and more popular and reaching different social and cultural groups due to the fact in the western societies, thinner female bodies are being considered the ideal ones. It asserts that the government and others, being concerned about the rising rate

Dietary advice has cultural and health constructs intertwined. There are progressive and damaging aspects of the social constructs within diet tips. The gains are that it provides awareness of foods, it’s constantly evolving and has lots of variety to fit societies desires. On the other hand, these constructs can be negative because trendy foods may not be based off health with guidelines like status, ease and taste. It’s vital to grasp both sides of social constructs when discussing dietary advice.

Culture can influence diet based upon what makes up social norms.For example, “in Samoa, where obesity rates are very high, it was found that weight was positively associated with social status (Wiley & Allen, p 102).” There is also some irony within cultural diets; for example, the